


It’s a Daily Slog Towards Destiny

by StormySteady



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: (mostly fluff though), Fluff and Angst, Frustration in general, Love Confessions, M/M, Second year Midorima & Takao, Secret Relationship, Sexual Frustration, Slow Build, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 69,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2569079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormySteady/pseuds/StormySteady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He and Midorima have been together for the better part of a year, but sometimes Takao still wonders where their relationship is heading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was the springtime of their first year of high school when Midorima Shintaro and Takao Kazunari finally confessed their feelings to one another. On that day, the sun was shining, cherry blossoms fluttered on a gentle breeze, and Takao may or may not have just sustained a mild concussion.

"Honestly, Takao. What did you expect to happen, after approaching the game with such a flippant attitude?" Midorima lectured, his voice cutting unpleasantly through the buzzing in Takao's head. Laying flat on his back in the middle of the outdoor basketball court as he was, Takao wasn’t able to see Midorima as he spoke. But he imagined that the other boy was frowning. "Luck will only be on your side if you pay attention and take your opponents seriously- otherwise, misfortune is sure to follow."

Takao only half-heard what Midorima was saying as he took stock of his physical state. He had hit his head against the blacktop pretty hard- that much was sure. He didn’t think that he had passed out or anything, but he felt funny all the same, his focus expanding and contracting to the rhythm of his pulse. It was a funny sensation, and Takao allowed a short giggle to slip out. He expected this little spasm to make his head hurt worse. But it didn’t. That was heartening.

After a few more moments of self-assessment, Takao concluded that he didn’t seem to be _imminently_ on the verge of death. And since that was the case, it was probably okay to start giving Midorima a little hell. He smiled at the prospect.  

"Oh, come on, Shin-chan, I was being serious!” he began. As far as he could tell, his speech wasn’t slurred at all. Another good sign. “That right there was a one hundred percent serious attempt to block your shot. How was I to know that you were just going to completely ignore that I was there and… like, hadouken me across the court?"

As expected, his friend was unapologetic. "You of all people should know that my shots are untouchable. Therefore, any attempt on your part to block them should be seen as a frivolous and unnecessary act."

Takao huffed. "Well by that logic, what's the point of us playing against each other at all? It's not like I’m ever gonna win."

"A fact that I understand perfectly well. _You're_ the only one here who makes a habit of struggling against destiny." Midorima said, emerging once again into Takao's pathetically diminished field of view and kneeling down beside his fallen friend. Takao attempted to sit up, get at his eye level, whatever, but Midorima quickly pressed him back down onto the blacktop. "No sudden movements."

Takao laughed at the serious expression on his face. And then he laughed even harder when Midorima pulled a voluminous red-and-white first aid kit out from seemingly nowhere and started to unpack its contents. He couldn't tell what most of the stuff inside of it was- Midorima was an organized man, and so the box was largely comprised of a series of smaller plastic containers and compartments, with neat labels on the top and a "date of last restock" recorded on the side. There were a few odds and ends that he was able to recognize, though.

 "Wow, Shin-chan, do you really think this little bump is going to need a 160-count bundle of gauze _and_ an inhaler _and_ a… wow, what even is that? Is that like a sterile bucket that you can put someone's organs in if they die or something? It's got a drawing of a heart on it and everything- geez, Shin-chan, I didn't know you were that morbid-"

"It's a portable defibrillator, idiot. Everybody knows that the act of harvesting organs is best left to professionals." Midorima scoffed. "And obviously I don't plan to use all of this equipment on _you_ , I am simply trying to search for... ah, there it is!"

He drew his hand out of the seemingly bottomless tin, fingers clenched around a small, white cylinder.

After a few seconds of confusion, Takao identified the object as a penlight that Midorima had used as a lucky item once or twice. But since that was super boring and anticlimactic, Takao went ahead and twisted his face into an affronted expression anyway. "Is that- is that a _pregnancy_ test, Shin-chan?"

Midorima rolled his eyes and shuffled closer to Takao's side, giving the tool a few experimental clicks to assure himself that it still worked. "You're trying to tease me, but it's not working. On the contrary, I consider your continued capacity to act ridiculous to be a hopeful sign. Now..." Midorima hefted the penlight, holding it a short distance away from Takao's face- "keep your eye on the light." 

There were so many things that he could have made fun of Midorima for at that moment that Takao was bursting with them. Sometimes with this guy it was almost _too_ easy. What kind of high school student lugged around a first aid kit that was better equipped than most doctors' offices? Or tried to give their friends neuro exams at the slightest provocation? Ha, and Midorima kept saying that _he_ was the ridiculous one. 

But ridiculous or not, Takao stilled himself and looked up at the light anyway. Sometimes it was easier to just go with the flow, where his friend was involved. Besides, he couldn’t deny that it was kinda hot when Midorima got intense about stuff.

Midorima leaned over Takao, glasses slipping down his nose as he concentrated on Takao's pupils or blood vessels or whatever the hell he was trying to look at, and all at once, without warning, Takao felt the force of just how much he _felt_ for Midorima. How much he had always felt for him, ever since that first time the two of them had faced off in middle school. Takao had long since accepted that these feelings had grown into love. Maybe not normal love, whatever that meant- like the kind in his little sister’s girly manga- but a type of it nonetheless. 

A lot of people made jokes about the two of them being like an old married couple, and in a way that assessment had always made sense to Takao. His feelings for Midorima weren’t something that caused him stress, weren’t something that he angsted over or rhapsodized about or consciously made a place for in the forefront of his thoughts. Midorima didn’t make his heart pound wildly with emotion. He was just what kept that ever-steady beat from stopping.

But every now and again, something would happen- just a little thing, a stupid thing, like Midorima showing him a particularly quirky lucky item or making an impossible shot- and it would remind him of just how _Midorima_ Midorima was. For a moment, something inside him would swell, and Takao would remember that, _wow_ , yeah, this is the person that he was in love with, and wasn’t that amazing?

This was the feeling that hit Takao right then as he lay on the steaming, getting-kinda-uncomfortable blacktop, blinking stupidly as Midorima shone lights at him and made him move his arms in weird ways. 

Whenever Takao had noticed these emotions in the past in the past, he had always been content to just push them down. Not because he was really averse to telling his friend what he felt for him, but just because there didn't seem to be a point in doing so. Most of the time he was happy with the way things were. But something about that moment then- the shining sun, or that pair of soft cherry blossoms that had just alighted in Midorima's hair, (or most likely the fact that, yeah, Takao had to admit it, he was probably at least a little bit concussed)- made the swelling in Takao spill over. 

"Shin-chan, I really like you," he blurted out. "I know we're already married, but will you please go out with me anyway?"

It’s funny, sometimes, how quickly a person’s world can change.

Like right at that moment, when Midorima's eyes grew wide behind his glasses, and Takao could almost see the battle between tsun-Midorima and dere-Midorima playing out behind them. And then he wished he hadn't, because _oh God_ that was the stupidest mental image ever and laughing right now would probably be on par with laughing at a funeral, but he didn’t think that he could stop himself. 

But just when a first, treacherous giggle was about to slip out, Midorima spoke. His voice was quieter than Takao was used to, but no less confident.

"Idiot, don't ask people questions that you already know the answer to. If it's fate, you know that I'm not going to stand in the way."

It took Takao a few seconds to figure out what his friend was trying to say, but when he finally did, his face broke into the biggest smile. A crazy kind of energy spread through him, and in one abrupt motion he sat up, leaning in closer to his decidedly pink-cheeked partner. 

Those green eyes widened again, but for a different reason this time. "I already told you not to sit up so suddenly!” he said, making a move to push Takao down again. “Honestly-"

He was unable to finish this sentence, because all of the sudden he found Takao's mouth pressed against his own. And even though Takao expected Midorima to pull away at the first possible opportunity, he was delighted to find that Midorima's lips lingered for a few seconds, gentle and full of promise, before they disengaged and resumed his lecture. 

Takao only half-listened to whatever Midorima said next, much more preoccupied with trying to suppress the dopey smile that had already started to spread across his face. Because as happy as he had been with the way things were, anticipating a future full of moments like that, shared kisses and shared feelings and all of the other things that lovers shared, made him even happier. Everything had finally fallen into place, he concluded, and the future was going to be _awesome._

-

 

Of course, a person’s most cherished daydreams only come true every so often. And, eight and three-quarters months later, as the pair of them laid wrapped around each other in bed, skin-to-skin but no longer quite eye-to-eye, Takao was starting to believe he had hit his quota. 

" _Kazunari_ ,” Midorima grunted. His voice sent a shiver down Takao’s spine, which petered out the moment Takao realized that his boyfriend was annoyed rather than aroused. “I already told you to stop that."

"Hm?” He frowned, trying to figure out what was bothering Midorima this time.  “Stop what?"

Midorima grit his teeth. "Doing that... that _thing_ that you're doing."

Well. That certainly narrowed it down. Takao had been doing a number of “things” just then, but none of it was stuff that he could remember Midorima expressly forbidding. Their shirts had come off a few minutes ago, lost somewhere in the mess that was the floor of Takao's room, but that step was familiar territory by now. And, yeah, as usual, the sight of his half-naked boyfriend had made Takao feel a little crazy, made him want to kiss him and touch him all over and not stop until they were both an exhausted, sweaty mess, but it wasn’t like he was actually _doing_ any of those things. Midorima had made it clear from the beginning that any physical intimacy would happen at his pace precisely, and Takao had no intention of fighting him on that.

Not that he didn’t want to take their relationship to the next level, of course. The second that Midorima was willing, Takao planned to jump his bones with the force of a natural disaster, and God help anyone who tried to get in his way. But for time being, he thought he had been sticking to those tried-and-true techniques that he knew his boyfriend liked the best. Soft kisses across the chest, fingers kneading their way gently down the muscles of his abdomen- Midorima had always been a sucker for the romantic stuff. _That_ couldn’t be what he was objecting to.

"Shin-chan, you've gotta help me out more," Takao said with a sigh. He knew he should probably pull back, give his boyfriend some space. But even when Midorima was being difficult, it was still next to impossible to let go of him once Takao had him in his arms. He compromised by shifting up a little bit, pushing himself up to hover a few inches above his boyfriend’s body rather than lying flush on top of it. "What exactly do I have to stop doing? Kissing you?"

Midorima looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “ _No,_ idiot. Why would I want you to stop doing that?”

Takao shrugged, consciously deciding to find Midorima’s response cute rather than infuriating. “What is it then?”

“I swear, Kazunari, if you continue to be deliberately obtuse for one more second…“ Midorima said. When Takao continued to look at him with a bemused expression, he frowned and, without any warning, jerked his hips upward, directly into certain sensitive anatomical structures that had been pressing down between  them.

Takao yelped and rolled off of Midorima. "Oh wow, Shin-chan, I'm really sorry, I didn't notice-"

Midorima interrupted him, his voice sour. "Your ‘hawk eye’ allows you to see things that are occurring all the way on the other side of the court, but leaves you unable to notice when your own… _self_ is rubbing someone else’s against their will? Please explain to me how that makes sense."

 "It's... I mean, I was distracted."

"Be less distracted, then," Midorima said. Takao sighed- as if it were that easy. Sometimes he wondered whether Midorima even _liked_ it when they did this kind of stuff. Because if those kisses affected him even half as much as they did Takao, shouldn’t he know how utterly impossible of a command that was? "It's not the first time that I've asked you not to touch me there. Why can't you have better self control?"

Takao really didn't know how to respond to that. Telling Midorima the truth, that every time their bodies touched it felt so natural, so _normal_ that he had trouble remembering that Midorima didn’t experience it the same way- was clearly out of the question. Not only was it sappy, it was _selfish_ , and, at the end of the day, it did nothing to change the fact that Midorima was 100% in the right here. If Takao really loved Midorima, he should never even think of pushing him like that. End of story.

In his head, Takao knew all of this, reminded himself of it at least a hundred times a day. Heck, that day in particular, during which Midorima had agreed to come over to his house even though the rest of Takao’s family was out, he must have reminded himself more than a _thousand_ times. But when push came to shove and his boyfriend was sprawled out below him, all smooth skin and chiseled muscles and those eyes, all green and alert and sometimes even _vulnerable_ as they looked up into his…

It just seemed like the kind of thing that was attainable, right then. Midorima’s body, his warmth, the feeling of physical closeness. Obviously those weren’t the _only_ things that Takao wanted out of their relationship- even before they had started dating, Takao had forgotten how to imagine a future that Midorima didn’t feature prominently in, and this fearful but exhilarating need to weave their lives closer together had only grown stronger once they had taken the leap from friendship to more. But out of everything that he wanted from Midorima, he thought that this was the kind of thing he was most likely to actually get. 

Takao wanted Midorima’s body. That was true. (And _how_ that was true.) But that was only a small fraction of his greed. He also wanted Midorima’s smiles, all of them, even the ones that were just little twitches of the lip that Takao half-convinced himself that he was imagining. He wanted Midorima’s hand in his whenever it was in grabbing distance. When they went out into the world, he wanted everybody to know that they were together, and when they were sharing quiet moments on their own, he wanted to know that Midorima was his. 

Takao knew that all this was way too much to ask, and so he didn’t ask it. If the intensity of these feelings freaked even Takao out- Takao, who prided himself on being a pretty steady, unflappable guy- there was no telling how much they would frighten Midorima. 

He turned away from his boyfriend, bringing his hands up to his face in a pathetic attempt to press these thoughts out of his brain. “Sorry, Shin-chan,” he eventually managed. He tried to block the unhappiness from his voice. But he suspected that those efforts didn’t work too well. “I didn’t meant to gross you out or anything.” 

Behind him, he heard Midorima huff.  “And now you’re being dramatic again. Tell me, Kazunari. Have I ever once said that you ‘gross me out’?”

Takao sighed. “I mean, I guess you’ve never _said_ it said it, but it sure seems like you’re thinking it sometimes. Like when we kiss and stuff. It doesn’t always seem like you want it.”

“Well, you’re mistaken. You know that I have yet to be ‘grossed out’ by anything we’ve done. And surely you know that I want you.” 

Takao couldn’t help but chuckle at that, even though nothing about the situation was particularly funny. “Don’t act like that’s such an obvious thing,” he chided, his voice quieter than he had intended it to be. “How am I supposed to know that, huh?” 

“You should know it because I said it. And despite what you think, I’m not in the habit of lying to you.” 

And as always, Midorima was right. For all of his boyfriend’s flaws, Takao knew that he’d be hard-put to find a more sincere and honest person on the face of the earth. But just because Midorima said things that he thought were true at the time didn’t mean that Takao could always believe them. Especially the things he said when they were alone, the kind of words that were only spoken softly, like-

“Someday soon, I'll be ready to do... those things, with you.” Midorima’s voice came, right on cue, from behind Takao’s back. “I promise. But in the meantime, you need to be more patient.” The bed shifted slightly, and he felt Midorima draw closer to his back. “Please.”

It was the ‘please’ that finally did him in. With a sigh, Takao flipped over, turning again to look at his boyfriend. The look on Midorima’s face right then, that weird mix of shyness and severity that nobody else could ever stand a chance of pulling off, set off a cascade of warmth through Takao's body, and he found himself taking his boyfriend’s hand. It was the _wrong_ hand, the one wrapped so thickly in athletic tape that he could barely feel Midorima through it, but he gave it a squeeze all the same. 

"I'll be patient, Shin-chan. I can hold off for as long as you need; it’s not like I’ll die or anything. And even if you want to go back to just being friends… I dunno, I’d be sad, but I’d accept it. You know I just want to be with you." 

"Don't say such embarrassing things,” Midorima said, in that tone of voice he used when he wanted to sound harsh but was really just being a tsundere. Or maybe he actually _was_ being harsh. Normally, Takao could tell the difference between the two, but recently he was afraid that he might be losing his touch. “And please remember that you were the one who confessed to me in the first place. It would be rude of you to back out now.”

Relief bubbled up in Takao’s chest when he heard those words. It would have felt good, if it hadn’t revealed to Takao just how nervous he must have been to hear his boyfriend’s response. In the back of his mind, he wondered how long it would take for him to not go into a panic at the mere thought of Midorima leaving him. 

Luckily, the rest of his mind was content enough with that subtle show of affection to form a proper reply. “I don’t want to back out! This has nothing at all to do with me. I was just thinking, if you wanted me to _let_ you out… you know. That wouldn’t be rude. It would be polite.”

“Like you’ve ever worried about being polite before.”

“Ha, shouldn’t that be my line?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. My manners are impeccable.”

Takao let out a snort. “Whatever you say, Shin-chan.”

That being sorted out (at least for the time being), they continued to lay in bed for a little while longer, fingers interlaced but lost in their own thoughts. Eventually Midorima got cold and put his shirt back on- it was pushing December after all, and reasonable people should know better than to lounge around in inappropriate attire if they want to avoid colds and other seasonal illnesses nanodayo- and Takao guessed he didn't see any reason not to follow suit. The lights were turned off, a few quick kisses were shared, and the two of them settled into bed.

Takao was just about to drift off to sleep when he felt a soft touch at his side, followed by a whisper. "I’m sorry, Kazunari. Someday soon.”

He figured that a good boyfriend would have reassured him that there was nothing to be sorry for. But as much as Takao wanted to be a good boyfriend, as much of his energy as he had thrown into that role over the past months, some kind of creeping anxiety glued his mouth shut, and he ended up not responding at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have been really jealous of all of the people who have time to do nanowrimo this year, and in this jealously I guess I started a long fic of my own. Oops. 
> 
> A few notes/warnings before proceeding:  
> 1) Since this takes place in Takao and Midorima's 2nd year, that means that the rest of their team has graduated. They'll show up from time to time, as will characters from other high schools, but in the meantime the Shuutoku little siblings referenced in the "epilogue" will be getting a lot of screen time. Because lol, am I the only one who found that kind of cute? I know that this is getting pretty close to OC territory (even though I'm kinda writing them as clones of their big bros), so I'm just warning you now that if you don't like that kind of stuff (which is understandable), the rest of this story is liable to frustrate you  
> 2) Updates will be at a glacially slow pace.  
> 3) Tags, etc are evolving. There will probably be more pairings later, possibly even confusing crack pairings, but nothing's set in stone yet.
> 
> Sorry for the extensive note, and thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't surprising that math class would make Takao think of Midorima. Takao had learned long ago that math was a subject that his boyfriend loved with a passion that bordered on aggression- the string of unsolicited “tutoring sessions” that Midorima had subjected Takao to upon learning that he didn’t feel the same was a trauma that he wouldn’t soon forget. 

(Or at least, it had seemed like a trauma at the time. These meetings had taken place back before they had starting dating, after all, during that awkward phase that had left Takao constantly wondering what exactly he was to Midorima, whether he was a friend or a lover or a slave. Nowadays, however, the memory of those tutoring sessions seemed more cozy than it did antagonistic. It had been nice in a way, sitting in front of a big stack of calculus books and watching in a peaceful state of incomprehension as his boyfriend scribbled equation after meaningless equation on an oversized whiteboard, watching Midorima’s cheeks flush the way they always did when he was caught up in something he really loved. It was a good look on him, one of many…

A dreamy smile crept over Takao's face. And, just like that, it was as if the next fifteen minutes of lecture didn't exist.)

So yeah, it wasn’t surprising that math class would make Takao think of Midorima. But when he emerged from his reverie to the sound of his teacher explaining the finer points of some obscure World War II battle, and then checked the clock to see that he was actually about a third of the way into history class- at that point, he had to admit it: this was starting to become a problem. 

Midorima wasn't even in his _class_ this year, Takao reminded himself, the voice of his thoughts frustrated. And he hadn’t so much as seen his boyfriend since practice a few days prior. He didn't have the usual excuses to explain his sporadic trips to la-la land, like being distracted by his boyfriend's striking looks or contemplating his lucky items or anything like that. Not that these were even good excuses to begin with- otherwise Midorima would have suffered from them too, back when the two of them had been in the same class. But since Takao was willing to bet that Midorima had never lost a minute of active engaged learning time to amorous imaginations, he also had to accept that he had nothing to blame but his own lack of willpower. 

Channeling his inner Midorima, he forced himself to focus on the chalkboard for a few seconds, but it was no use. Since he'd been spacing out during the first part of the lecture, the fragmented words that his teacher had written, like "supply chain" and "intelligence", only confused him further. And besides, trying to pretend that he was as focused as Midorima had the predictable effect of just making him focus even more on Midorima himself, and all of the things he’d rather being doing than sitting in class just then. 

Takao sighed and looked around the room. If he couldn't pay attention to the lecture, he figured the next best step would be to at least find something that would prevent him from thinking about his boyfriend. The topic _du jour_ was just gory enough that it seemed inappropriate to get all hot and bothered during it. 

As usual, the classroom was pretty boring. Their teacher had decorated the room in a kind of minimalist fashion, with a few cheap prints of famous works of art adorning the walls and a map or three affixed to the side of the chalkboard. The people in the classroom never changed either- every day, they sat in the same seats, and wore the same uniform clothes and disaffected expressions. He was about to start memorizing the enlarged periodic table of elements in the front of the room out of sheer desperation before he noticed it. Something so out of the ordinary, so surreal, that he had to do a double-take before even believing his eyes. 

At the desk just next to his, Kimura Kazuo, one of the new semi-regulars for their school's basketball team and probably the most conscientious student that Takao was acquainted with, was dozing quietly. 

A smile spread across Takao's face, mischievous and brimming with intent. Normally there would be nothing strange about seeing a classmate sleep during class, but this was _Kimura._ There had to be a story here, he just knew it. And Takao was going to get to the bottom of it if it killed him.

He took another look at his teammate's semi-conscious form, eyes peeled for any further digressions from his usual appearance. For such an unremarkable person, Takao was surprised by just how much he was able to remark about him. They had been practicing together for a while now, and so his teammate's immense size and breadth hardly even registered anymore. But the wind-chapped, lobster-tinted look to his skin was new. Maybe from working at his family's fruit stand over the weekend? The weather hadbeen a little colder than normal, come to think of it…

He shook his head. Kimura worked at the fruit stand _every_ weekend, rain or shine, picking up the slack that his older brother had left when he moved away for college. No, it had to be something else.

His eyes continued to scan, noting the wrinkles on Kimura's normally neatly-pressed uniform and the subtle mismatch in the color of his socks. Pretty much the only thing about him that didn't hint at frazzled distraction was his impeccable classroom sleeping technique. Their teacher this year was famous for being strict, and she could normally spot a sleeper within a few seconds of their starting to nod off. But even though she looked over at their corner of the room from time to time, she didn’t seem to have noticed that anything was amiss.

And thank goodness for that, he thought. He didn’t know if Kimura could handle being scolded by an authority figure, simply because such a thing had never _happened_ before. As far as Takao knew, his teammate had never once missed class or turned in an assignment late or anything like that. Even the small technical rules that everyone including the teachers seemed to ignore, like some of the intricacies of the Shuutoku dress code, were sacred to Kimura. 

Takao smiled. Although, come to think of it, Kimura had also skipped basketball practice that Saturday, another "first" for the big second year. He squirmed in his seat, curiosity taking over. He couldn’t wait until lunchtime, when he could prod his teammate into revealing the whole, undoubtedly juicy story of his descent into infamy.

But in order to hear all about it _later_ , Takao needed to make sure that Kimura didn’t melt or wither or combust under the weight of their teacher's severity _now_. 

He aimed a swift kick, more of a tap, really, in his teammate's direction, knocking against his leg two or three times before Kimura finally blinked his way into wakefulness. He looked over at Takao, still disoriented, and Takao shot him a cheeky grin. "I know, I kinda want to take a nap too," he whispered, through a smile that grew even wider as Takao noticed the embarrassment on Kimura's face. "But I figured you didn’t mean to fall asleep."

The larger boy nodded his thanks and returned his eyes to the front of the room. Within a minute, he was back to scribbling furiously in his notebook. Maybe a bit _too_ furiously, even for him- and how long was that blush going to linger on his cheeks, red and splotchy like an allergic reaction? Kimura was _definitely_ hiding something.

Takao chuckled to himself. Lunch break today was going to be fun.

 

His new mission in mind, Takao was able to push all tempting thoughts of Midorima away for the rest of the lesson. And when lunchtime finally came around, he didn't waste a minute before accosting his teammate. 

"So. What were you up to last night, to make you so tired today?" Takao asked. He tried to keep his voice as light and airy as possible, but, judging by how Kimura yelped and nearly dropped his bento in response, he supposed the tone of insinuation was still there.

"I... I was busy studying, that's all." Kimura coughed. "It took me a while to get through the physics problems."

Takao cocked his head to the side. "You mean those problems that you helped me with last week? The ones that you pretty much just solved for me while I looked on and pretended like I understood?"

"Um... yeah. Those." 

"Hmm." 

Kimura continued to fidget. "I must have forgotten how to do them because I didn't study consistently over the whole weekend," he said. Takao could practically see the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to come up with an excuse that his teammate would accept. "I was lazy and didn't do anything productive on Saturday. So when I returned to the topic on Sunday, I found that I had gotten rusty." 

"Ugh, I hate it when that happens," Takao said, grinning. "Is that why you weren’t at practice on Saturday, then? You were busy sitting around and collecting rust?"

"Well, I was..." Kimura pressed his lips together, his beady eyes focused intently on the grain of his wooden desktop. "I was busy. It was a busy weekend. Lots of... things, and projects, to do." 

With a pensive nod, Takao considered this. “So what you’re trying to tell me is, you were out on a date? Wow, Kimura, congrats, you’ll have to tell me all about it.”

This completely unfounded assertion make his teammate blush an even deeper red. “I wasn’t on a _date_! That’s crazy! It wasn’t like that at all-“

Takao was beginning to feel like he was on to something here. There was no way that a guy could blush that hard if there wasn’t a romance or a scandal or something in that vein involved. Fighting the brief flash of jealousy that sparked into being when he wondered what it must be like, to just hide a relationship because of embarrassment rather than cold necessity, Takao kept digging. “Hey, no shame in it if it was a date. So, who’s the girl? Does she go to our school?”

“ _There is no girl!_ ”

Upon closer inspection, his teammate was actually _sweating_ from the stress, and since Takao was clearly getting nowhere on the juicy-gossip-unearthing front, he decided to just let the issue drop. When Kimura made a blatant play to change the topic, the smaller boy followed his lead. 

"So, where's Midorima? Don't you usually go over to 2-A to eat with him?"

Takao wrinkled his nose. "Um, I don't know. I don't think I'm welcome in that classroom anymore ever since, you know, last Thursday, so I guess Shin-chan'll have to come here if he wants to eat with us." 

"I told you that prank was a bad idea."

"Of course it was a bad idea! That's why it was funny. Besides, what did Shin-chan _expect_ to happen, on a day when his lucky item was hairspray and mine was, what was it? A bag of flour twice sifted by hand or something?"

Kimura shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how the two of you ever became friends."

"Yeah, me too," Takao said. 

As always, he was struck by the impulse to explain just how far beyond the category of "friends" they had gotten. But as always, he bit back on this urge. They guys on the basketball team were nice and all, but that didn't mean that Takao could go dropping bombshells like _that_ on them without any warning. His own mother had taken months to warm up to the idea of him dating another man after she had (in the most accidental and humiliating way possible) found out about their relationship, and he was starting to think that Midorima's parents would never even accept him as their son’s friend.  Telling the team might feel like a relief in the short term, since Takao wasn't a big fan of lying day in and day out to people that he liked. But in the long run, it was probably better for everyone if they kept things quiet for a while. Or forever. 

(At least, that was how Midorima explained it, whenever the subject of the two of them possibly coming out at some point came up.)

Takao frowned into the mess of several-day-old leftover vegetables and fish that he had cobbled together for his lunch. It disturbed him to think that this meal might be the edible form of his current emotional state. 

Luckily, Kimura had been looking out the window right then, and didn't notice the clouds that had formed over Takao's head. "I guess stranger things have happened," he said. 

"You're sure right about that."

They chewed their lunches in quiet contemplation. On instinct, Takao began to compile a mental list of conversation starters, like haha did you hear about this silly antic that happened at that practice you missed? Or wow, I was really zoning out during math today, since you were asleep I wonder who I can get the notes from. Or any number of other viable options. 

But even though Takao was normally a big fan of small talk and gossip and all that good stuff, he wasn’t feeling it right then. It sounded weird to say it- or think it, rather, because that semi-awkward silence from before continued to stretch between Kimura and himself- but even in that busy classroom, Takao felt lonely. There was one person in particular that he wanted to talk to right then, and without him, even if he were to chat away until his throat went dry, he wasn’t sure if anything he said would be worth listening to.

The vegetables were even grosser than Takao had anticipated- he had forgotten that it had been his little sister who’d originally prepared them, as part of his mother’s recent campaign to teach her life skills. Therefore, it was a great relief when all of the sudden, he found them replaced with the exact sweet sesame bun he had been fantasizing about since the lunch period had began. 

“I recalled that you liked these, so I brought you one.” 

A twinge of excitement sparked through Takao’s chest. There was no mistaking that voice. 

In one short, precise movement, Midorima pulled over an abandoned chair from nearby and sat down next to his two teammates. “Kimura. I hope you’re well. We missed you at practice this weekend.”

Takao suddenly found he had no shortage of things to say. “Don’t even try, Shin-chan. If _I_ already tried to get the story out of him and failed, there’s no way you’ll be able to do it.”

A choking noise, and then: “I keep telling this guy- there _is_ no story! I was busy, that’s all!” 

In his haste to explain himself, Kimura let a few grains of rice drop inelegantly from his mouth. Midorima raised an eyebrow at Kimura’s flustered state. “Oh, I believe you. Don’t worry, not everyone is as insufferably nosy as Takao.”

“Hey!”

But Midorima didn’t even spare him a glance as he unwrapped his own, impeccably packaged lunch and began to eat. If Takao hadn’t been paying attention, he might have missed the little smile there, ghosting at the corners of his boyfriend’s mouth. 

“So _rude_ , Shin-chan,” he muttered. 

Normally Takao would give his boyfriend a much harder time for making such a doughebaggy entrance. But it was difficult to do that when he was trying to hard to hide a smile himself. 

Lunchtime proceeded from there with the usual banter, arguing, and bewildered onlooking (on the part of Kimura), and eventually Takao decided that everything must have gotten back to normal. But right as they were finishing their food, the sound of the classroom door slamming open shattered that illusion.

“Kimura fucking Kazuo! Did you seriously skip a _mandatory team practice_ for a fucking _date_?”

“It wasn’t a-“

“And don’t you dare try to tell me it wasn’t a date! What, do you think I’m stupid? I have an eyewitness that says you were in a cafe with some girl on Saturday, eating a parfait. _What other possible reason could a man have to eat a parfait?_ ”

As Kimura cowered before their captain’s red-faced rage, Midorima shifted closer to Takao.

“This is an unseemly display,” Midorima murmured, reaching for his lunchbox. “I’ll be going now. I had only meant to drop by for a few minutes anyways, before returning to my studies.”

Instinctively, Takao grabbed at his boyfriend’s jacket, trying to hold on to the scraps of his attention as long as he could.

“Please, Shin-chan. Don’t leave me with them. I won’t survive it this time.”

But even though his expression was pathetic as pathetic could be, it didn’t land him any compassion from Midorima. “If you had listened to my urgings and brought your lucky item, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. I don’t think I need to remind you that Scorpio ranks 12th today.”

“But where was I supposed to find a pot of begonias at six in the morning?”

“You could have asked me for help. I have my ways.” 

The situation around them was getting more unseemly by the second, with chasing and yelling and Kimura trying to hide in places that were far too small for a person of his body type, but all that Takao could see right then was Midorima’s stubborn face. He sighed- his boyfriend could be difficult sometimes, but since he was invariably _sincere_ about everything that he said, Takao couldn’t help but find it a little cute. 

“Alright, Shin-chan. Next time Scorpio ranks last, I promise that the lucky item situation will be well under control.”

The look of surprise on Midorima’s face almost made it worth the trouble that Takao had just signed himself up for in the future. “That’s all I ask,” he said simply. “You should clean your lunch up now. The bell’s about to ring.”

Midorima left, followed soon after by their still-livid basketball captain. Literature class commenced. And even though Takao was a fan of literature, as much as he was a fan of any academic stuff, he found his mind drifting off once again... 

This really was starting to become a problem. 


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't _quite_ as cold outside as it had been at early that morning, when Takao had grumbled and shivered his way down the icy streets towards the school. but the temperature still couldn’t have increased by more than a few degrees. But luckily, right then, Takao was okay with the chill. 

It was pushing eight o'clock and he and Midorima were still in Shuutoku’s gym, getting some extra practice in. At least Midorima was still in the gym- Takao could hear the rhythmic _thump, thump, swish_ of three-pointers being shot, a sound as steady as a metronome. Up until a few minutes ago Takao had been practicing too, weaving his way through wave after wave of imaginary opponents as he cleaved a path towards the hoop. But playing all alone got boring after awhile. So he was taking a break.

Hot and sweaty as he was, there was no better place to do so than just outside of the little side door, the one that opened directly to the outdoor fields in all their frosty glory. Takao could feel the heat seeping out of his body with every cool gust of wind, and it felt dangerously close to perfection.

However, after a minute or two, it started to feel dangerously close to hypothermia instead. Drawing away from the door, Takao planned his next move.

"Hey. Shin-chan. How much longer do you think you're going to stay?"

Midorima was right in the middle of a shot right then, and either hadn't heard Takao or was willfully ignoring him. In any case, no response came. 

With a sigh, Takao trotted over to the other side of the court, closer to where his boyfriend was practicing. "Hey, Shin-chan!"

Midorima had already gotten to that critical point in his next shot where he was fixing his eyes intently on the basket, ball almost thrumming with potential energy in the shooter's hands. Seeing this, Takao instinctively knew that he was going to be ignored again until this shot, and possibly even the next _few_ shots, had been completed. Midorima claimed that he had never needed to enter the "zone" in the way that some of his former teammates did- his was a precise and rational style of play, one in which animal instinct had no part, thank you very much. But despite his boyfriend's protests to the contrary, Takao couldn't help but notice that, after sinking a certain number of shots in a row, the other boy developed a kind of focus bordering on tunnel vision. 

It was another one of those things that made Midorima Midorima, Takao supposed. So he shrugged it off as usual and took a seat on the partially-protruding set of bleachers on the wall, content to wait until his boyfriend snapped out of it. 

And after all, it wasn't as if he minded watching. That perfect form, that perfect intensity- Takao knew that he should have gotten used to seeing these things by now, should maybe even have gotten bored of them. This was already his second year playing on the same team as Midorima. He must have seen him make thousands of threes at this point. But even after all this time, something about Midorima continued to command his attention.

And because, Takao supposed, he was hopeless and a pervert and the worst kind of scum, this simple appreciation soon took a dishonorable turn in his mind.

It started out with the sudden realization that they were completely alone in the gym. There had been a few other stragglers from the basketball team staying late to practice with them originally- the Winter Cup was coming up, after all, and everybody was feeling the pressure-, but the last of them had left a good half-hour or so ago. Takao could do anything he wanted right then, get up to any kind of mischief, and nobody would ever have to know.

His eyes slid over Midorima's body, lingering over the toned muscles of his arms, his hands, the sliver of skin that showed under his shirt whenever he rose up to make a shot, and he remembered what a disaster it had been the last time he had tried to make a move on Midorima in the gym. 

It had been during a moment much like this one, a late-night practice that had left them alone and unsupervised on school property, and Takao had gotten the same sort of tempting ideas as he was having now. Acting on them hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea at the time- this had been right after that night when he had first gotten Midorima shirtless, after all, and he had really felt like that had been some kind of breakthrough. And maybe it had been. Just, not the kind of breakthrough that had made Midorima hunger for sloppy makeout sessions in public spaces. Takao hadn’t even been able to land a proper kiss before Midorima dealt out swift and decisive punishment. 

(Takao winced at the memory.)

But hey, all of that had been back in September! Almost three months ago. Surely their relationship had progressed at least a little bit since then.

…

Takao wondered what Midorima would do if he went over and just… _touched_ him. Maybe, if he kept his approach slow enough, simply sliding his arms around his waist and pulling him close, more of a hug than a seduction, his boyfriend would allow him to linger. And maybe, since it really was late and the school really was empty, he would let his guard down enough for Takao to kiss him. He'd probably do that stupid thing he did sometimes and pretend not to notice what Takao was up to, forcing the shorter boy to strain on tip-toes to raise his lips up to the height of Midorima's, but Takao could deal with that. He knew from experience that if he persevered in his efforts long enough, his boyfriend would eventually give up and kiss him back.

There was no way that Midorima would let things go any further than that, or even that far at all. The rational part of Takao knew this. But still, Takao let his mind continue to wander, like Midorima's hands were wandering in his reverie, slipping up his sides to his chest to the back of his neck, pulling lightly on Takao's hair as he drew him into a deeper, breathless kiss. 

Takao closed his eyes and luxuriated in thought of their bodies sliding together, of how close and warm and sheltered it felt, like a little private world that only the two of them inhabited. That world wasn't perfect, of course- it had its share of dangers and rocky places, and sometimes Takao would lose his footing. But slowly, steadily, as they mapped out its terrain together, it had gotten a little easier to navigate.

However, sometimes Takao didn’t want to stay on the map. And since it was all in his head anyway, he saw no reason not veer off the trail they had cleared, into uncharted but much anticipated territory. 

Midorima's hands crept down again, to the hem of Takao's shirt and then under it, playing with the waistband of his gym shorts. Teasing him. A familiar rattle of frustration swept through Takao, and he wondered what it said about him that even in his fantasies he couldn't quite let himself get what he wanted. 

He knew that he wanted a lot. Probably even too much. He wanted Midorima's touch all over his body, under his clothes, under his skin. And he wanted to touch Midorima too, in all of the shadowy places that hadn't made it onto their map yet, to feel him harden and tremble and come undone. He wanted to know that Midorima wanted him too.

Whatever vague attempt at a storyline Takao had been constructing in his head started to unravel, giving way to a string of disconnected images. Midorima with his face buried in Takao's neck, grabbing his ass, grinding against him. Clothes coming off. Hands coming on, rubbing and squeezing as the air filled with needy moans. Midorima dropping to his knees, bracing himself against Takao's thighs as he leaned in and-

“Kazunari. _Kazunari_."

Takao blinked. That wasn't Midorima's sexy voice at all. That was Midorima’s pissed-off voice. And that expression his face was making from where he stood, just a few feet away from Takao- that kind of looked like his pissed-off face. 

"Would you care to explain why you're just sitting there staring off into space like a simpleton? I thought that we had both agreed to practice until seven thirty."

Takao blinked again, and then pointed at the clock at the far end of the gym. "It's past eight, Shin-chan."

Midorima glanced in the indicated direction. Then he frowned. "That clock can't be right."

"It was right earlier today. I remember looking at it when practice started." 

Midorima’s frown deepened- a sign of confusion if there ever was one- and Takao had to stifle a laugh. It must have been one hell of a good practice for his boyfriend if time had flown that rapidly for him. And since good practices meant good moods, it wasn't a huge stretch to believe that the walk home might be pretty fun. 

"So hey, Shin-chan, want to grab some food on the way home? Like burgers or something? It was Moriko's turn to cook today, I think, so the leftovers are probably going to be kinda dubious..."

"You just ate burgers two days ago,” Midorima reminded him. “If you keep these poor eating habits up, you're going to get sick. And I'm sure I don’t need to remind you that the Winter Cup is only three weeks away."

Takao laughed. "So, it'd be okay for me to get sick if the Winter Cup wasn't coming up? Wow, I'm really touched by your concern for my health, Shin-chan. You always know how to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

"Shut up, Takao. _Obviously_ I didn't mean it like that. I was simply pointing out-"

Takao could sense a long and unnecessary explanation coming on, and while sometimes it could be funny to watch Midorima descend into spirals of useless rhetoric, Takao hadn't been lying about how hungry he was right then. So, decided to put the brakes on Midorima before he could even get started.

"Think fast!"

Unfortunately, Midorima was able to catch the basketball that Takao had hurled at him without skipping a beat. Unruffled, he continued his rant. ”I was simply pointing out that a person's diet is a thing that must be carefully managed, and since I know that basketball is important to you, I chose to follow that assertion up with an example appealing to your pride as an athlete, and-"

"I get it, I get it, okay!" Takao couldn't help the little laugh that escaped as he spoke. To think that, at the beginning of their friendship, Takao's problem had been getting Midorima to talk at all. "Sorry, I was just trying to make a joke. But I'm really, really hungry, so can we just go eat now? It doesn't have to be burgers."

"Thank you for being reasonable," Midorima said with a sniff. He tossed the ball Takao had just thrown him from hand to hand for a few seconds and then, without warning, shot it over towards the cart that held the others. Takao figured that, even if it hit the target (and ha, this was Midorima, so of course it was going to hit the target), it would bounce right back out, possibly upsetting the cart and causing a general mess while it was at it. But contrary to his expectations, the ball stuck like glue after it landed.

Takao was pretty sure that defied the laws of physics somehow. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure a lot of the things he'd seen his friends do with basketballs defied the laws of physics.

He abandoned that train of thought when Midorima spoke again. "However, I am struggling to think of an inexpensive yet healthy alternative to fast food. And since that's the case, I suppose the only option is for you to come over and eat at my house."

Although Midorima had delivered this line in his usual tone, the kind of voice a person would use when stating that the sky is blue or that basketball is fun or other things that are self-evident, Takao couldn't miss the way that his boyfriend's eyes strayed to the side for a moment, as if he suddenly felt shy. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever, and before Takao knew it he had stood up from the bleachers and pounced on Midorima, enveloping him in a tight squeeze.

"Aw, Shin-chan! You really do care!" he gushed, as Midorima struggled to get free from his vice-like grip. “Ha, when's the last time you invited me over? Although, I never realized that you miss me so much when I'm not around, it makes me kinda sad..." 

"Did I say anything about _missing_ you?" By the time Midorima finally wiggled himself out of Takao's arms, his little blush had progressed to full-blown tomato status. "Honestly. I suppose this is my punishment, for feeling just a little sympathetic for once, and trying to find a way to shield you from Moriko-chan's culinary travesties..."

"And I'm super grateful for that!" Takao said, fighting to urge to jump on him again. He compromised by taking Midorima’s hand in his. ”Seriously, Shin-chan, thank you. You are the the best boyfriend ever and an awesome shield-er and you're literally saving my life right now."

"Yes, yes, I know. You are greatly in my debt, that's nothing new." Midorima said, sounding distracted as he looked down at their entwined fingers. Takao thought that he was going to pull away for a moment, but he didn’t. So the shorter boy grinned and tightened his grip.

“So hey, if I come over and eat at your house tonight, does that mean that Mom and Moriko are off the hook for this weekend?”

Midorima rolled his eyes. “ _No_ , Kazunari. And stop acting like the dinner is such a burden. It’s not as if you usually spend Saturday nights in more productive ways.”

“It’s not that it’s a burden, it’s just that it’s _weird._ ” Takao let out a little huff of frustration. He tried to pull his hand out of Midorima’s, but for once the tables were turned- Midorima’s hand remained clenched tightly around his. “If they knew we were dating that would be one thing, but inviting their son’s teammate’s family over for dinner? Who even _does_ that?”

“Well obviously they know that you’re more than just a teammate to me, even if they don’t know about… everything.” Takao wondered how long it would be before Midorima could look him straight in the eye when he talked about their relationship. He also wondered how long it would be before he, you know, would stop being so ashamed of Takao and just tell his parents what was up, or at least stop pushing Takao into situations where he actively had to lie about things, but he wasn’t holding his breath for that one. ”And so it’s natural that they would want to learn more about you. Since my parents are a bit more, ah, formal than yours are, this is the way that they normally go about doing that.”

Takao had heard this all before- they'd been bickering about the subject for almost a week now, ever since the uncharacteristic invitation had been extended. But Takao was always happy to bicker some more. 

"But why can't they 'learn more about me' without getting my family involved?” he groused. "Like, you know this isn't going to end well, right? Like, we'll get there, and your dad will be all like ‘ _so, what do you think about this and that and the stock market’_ , and your mom will be all like ' _oh, what a_ delight _this is so_ delightful _,’_ and my mom will just be like ‘ _shit which of these forks am I supposed to use’_ and-“

"Okay, Kazunari, you've made your point." Midorima was trying to sound serious, but Takao could see the corner of his lips twitch. "And for what it’s worth, I agree. This dinner will more than likely be quite uncomfortable for everyone involved. It would not surprise me at all if the sentences you just came up with are spoken word-for-word at some point during the evening." 

Midorima looked down at their joined hands still dangling loosely between them, and took in a breath that was maybe a little bit deeper than normal. And then he said something that struck Takao as being a little bit more honest than normal. 

”But the fact remains that this is the first attempt that my parents have ever made to take our relationship seriously. So for that reason, I’m inclined to let them have their way." 

There was no responding to a statement like that, and for once Takao didn't try. Instead, he just let out a loud, long-suffering sigh. "Okay, okay. You win again. I’ll stop complaining about it. But let the record show, I'm only agreeing to this under duress." He aimed a mischievous smile up at Midorima, giving his land a little squeeze as he did so. "And also, you totally owe me now. You can start by driving the rickshaw home, okay?"

For a second or two, Midorima just looked at him, tapping his thumb pensively against one of Takao's fingers. His silence grated at Takao, like pretty much all silences did, and he was just about ready to open his mouth and start chattering again when he felt a sudden tug at the wrist, drawing him in towards Midorima. 

And then without warning, Midorima kissed him.

It was just a quick little peck on the lips, over and done with before Takao was able to process what had just happened. It was certainly nothing like that kisses that Takao had been imagining just minutes before. But something about the way his body tingled in the aftermath made it seem much more earth-shattering. Instinctively, Takao reached out towards his boyfriend's shoulders, pulling him in for another one, but he was stopped by a firm hand on his chest. 

"That's enough for now, idiot. Can't you see that we're at school?" 

Takao wanted to punch that smirk off of Midorima's face. "Then why did you kiss me in the first place?" he groaned.

A shrug. "It was just something I was thinking about.” 

If the reason was anything more complex than that, Midorima didn't seem too keen on explaining it. Instead, he picked up his lucky item (a photograph frame with no photograph inside) from its position in front of the bleachers and started making his way towards the locker room, where the rest of their belongings were stashed. 

"Oh, and by the way," he said, after Takao had picked up his discarded sweatpants and trotted over to join him. "You notice that I have made no promises about driving the rickshaw home. We'll let fate decide, as usual."

Takao bit down on his usual retort- that it was jankenpo, not fate, and that since Midorima always cheated anyway it didn't even count-, and instead just let out a little huff. “You’re lucky you’re cute, Shin-chan,” he muttered. “Because why else would any sane person put up with this…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, someday this story will have a plot...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I'm happy to report that, after several months of thoughtful plotting, I've finally managed to figure out where this story is going. Hopefully this means that I'll be able to crank out the chapters quicker now (although, lets face it, even at my best I'm probably one of the slowest writers on the face of the planet).  
> I've gone back and edited chapters 1-3 a little bit to better reflect this new sense of direction, particularly the second half of chapter 1. There's not much new content, but the tone is a little different, so it might be worth browsing over again if you're a thorough kind of person.  
> Hope you enjoy!

The following day, Coach Nakatani came to practice bearing gifts. In the spirit of the last-few-weeks-before-the-Winter-Cup crunch, he had set up a practice match with a neighboring high school. Although Takao was excited at the prospect of scoping out some of the competition for the tournament, Shuutoku's captain seemed less than impressed. 

“Oh come on, not _those_ guys. They’re no good; it was a total upset that they even got through the qualifiers this year.” The blonde cringed, in annoyance or possibly pain- a group of them were in a cluster doing warmup stretches, and, like with anything Miyaji Yuya set out to do, he was approaching this task with a frightening level of intensity. This vigor worked well for them on the court, but Takao had to admit that it was probably overkill when practice hadn't even started yet. "Why can't we scrimmage against somebody that's on our level? Like Seirin, now that's a school. Maybe if we practice against teams like them we won't get our asses handed to us like we did last year.”

Takao looked up when he heard Seirin’s name. Miyaji was right, they were a pretty fun school to play against, and the two of them had a score to settle ever since Seirin had beaten them in that year’s Interhigh. The fact that it was always fun to watch Midorima get all adorably pumped up about playing against one of his former teammates and then to try to hide it in an equally adorable fashion was just an extra bonus to Takao. 

“Yeah, Seirin’s a good team. Nobody’s denying that. But think about it," one of the other guys in their group said. He paused for a second as Miyaji, who was running the warmup, indicated to change the stretch to a different position. "We haven't played against these other guys since, like, last fall or something. But because they're one of the only other schools from our district that made it through the qualifiers, we have a good chance of getting matched against them in the early rounds of the Winter Cup. Don't you think it'd be a good idea to get their measure?"

Miyaji just rolled his eyes. "The coach taped two of their matches from Interhigh; if you're scared of some no-name school bumping us off, you can watch those. Just admit it, you only want to play them because they have a cute manager."

The guy from before laughed. "Well, yeah, that's also a perk. I'd take her over Seirin's manager any day; Seirin’s is kinda scary.”

"It's not about the manager! It's about the game!” Miyaji seethed. “How can you call yourself a basketball player if the only thoughts in your head are winning against weak teams and picking up chicks?”

The captain looked like he was about to blow a gasket. For a second, Takao entertained the thought of intervening, helping to smooth things over, or whatever. But for some reason, it seemed like a lot more fun to add fuel to the fire. 

"You know, Miyaji, it's fine to just say that you have a thing for Seirin's manager. Nobody's gonna judge you for liking scary girls- that just means that there are more normal ones left over for everyone else."

Miyaji's face got about ten shades redder in the space of an instant. Takao grinned to himself- it was a nice effect. “What the hell are you talking about? I do like normal girls! And Aida-san's not even Seirin's manager- she's their goddamn _coach_! Does nobody on this team other than me even bother to research the competition?"

"Huh. So, you're not denying that she's your type, then?" Takao wondered. "That's cool, You know, Shin-chan's got a friend on Seirin's team; maybe he could put in a good word for you or something-"

"She is not my fucking _type_!" Miyaji snapped. An unfortunate soul at the other end of the cluster couldn't help but let out a chuckle at his outburst. He wasn't laughing any more after the blonde shot him one of his trademark glares. "And god help me the day I need _Midorima_ to help me get a girlfriend. Maybe that's why you're still single, if he's your idea of a great wingman."

Takao didn't miss the irony in that statement, but, for obvious reasons, he was forced to hold his tongue. Unfortunately for him, though, the rest of the team was under no such compulsions.

Their new center that year, one mountain of a guy who for whatever reason had chosen to ruin his imposing image with a overly-optimistic goatee, let out a laugh. "Bitter much, Miyaji? You of all people should know that Takao gets confessed to at least once a week, since you're the one that yells at him when it makes him late for practice."

Another teammate chimed in to agree. "Yeah, Takao could get a girlfriend whenever he wanted to. He’s just picky." He sighed. "Wish I could afford to be picky."

The guy standing next to him elbowed him in the side. "Cheer up, bro. Our time will come."

"How can it, when all the cute girls in our grade are holding out for Takao?" He looked over at Takao, a sort of joking-not-joking smile on his face. "You should really just pick one and get it over with. Who knows? Maybe I'm somebody's backup plan.” 

Maybe it was karma coming back around to bite him for needling Miyaji, but Takao was starting to get a headache. This really wasn’t the direction that he had intended the conversation to go. Even if his teammates weren't actually mad at him- there wasn't anybody on his team that he really disliked, and so he preferred to believe that he was for the most part liked _back_ \- he didn't enjoy it when his love life was brought under the microscope. It was tough to get through these conversation without resorting to lies. To do so required a painstakingly crafted vagueness. 

Choosing his words with care, Takao responded. ”Oh, come on. I’m sure that there's a girl out there who thinks of you as her first choice; she’s probably just shy or something." Takao changed the position he was stretching in, buying some time to consider a list of possible platitudes that he could offer next. “And I'm not going to settle for anyone other than my plan A, because I know that I'd be pissed off if the person I liked was just settling on me. It's that simple." 

"So there _is_ a girl you've got your eye on. I knew it had to be something like that." Clearly against his better judgement, even Miyaji had gotten sucked into their decidedly non-basketball-related conversation. "Anyone we know?"

"Don't worry, it's not Aida-chan. I'm not competing with you or anything."

"For the last time, Takao, I never said that I like her! And _you_ never answered my question.”

Takao sighed, still ill-at-ease with all of the eyes that were watching him. His headache was getting worse. 

Miyaji snorted. “Come on. It can’t be anything worse than Kimura’s secret girlfriend. I heard that she’s a big nerd. She’s in, like the physics club or something.”

Kimura was off in the corner basket, working with a particularly promising first year on some shooting techniques. Takao’s eyes flicked his way before responding. “There’s nothing wrong with a girl who’s smart. And it’s not anyone specific. Just, I don’t know, a certain kind of person.”

"Okay then, so what's your _type_ or whatever? I’m actually curious now. And don't just describe Midorima or some bullshit like that, because I knowthat’s what you were going to do.” 

He was right, of course. That had been Takao’s exact plan. Just when the heck had Miyaji gotten to know him so well? 

Luckily, it took more than that to get Takao flustered. He pretended to think, humming a little to add to the effect. "Hmm, I guess my type would be…” he said, drawing the final vowel out. “I don't know, maybe blonde? And bossy? And I guess they should play basketball- like, let's say they were the _captain_ of their basketball team, even, that would be a plus..."

Miyaji balled his fists. ”I swear to god, Takao..."

A couple of guys around the group laughed, which did nothing for their captain's state of embarrassment. Before he could like take a swing at Takao or whatever violent action those glinting eyes were promising, though, a cough on the outskirts of their circle diverted his attention. 

Takao looked over to see Midorima, geared up and ready to go. Ever since their first year, his boyfriend had had a tendency to do his warmups separate from the rest of the group, only joining them once he was ready to start practicing. At first Takao had been troubled by this antisocial habit and had pestered him endlessly in an attempt to make him join them, but in the end he'd given it up as a lost cause. 

After thinking back on that day's pre-practice discussion and its distinct lack of anything resembling maturity, however, he was starting to understand why his boyfriend might value his moments away from the team. 

"Haven't you guys warmed up enough? We're already well behind schedule," Midorima said, voice as even as ever as he surveyed the group. When he noticed the green tint that had settled onto Miyaji's face, he frowned. "Is the captain sick?"

Miyaji just rolled his eyes and looked away. "Warmups are important. Don't rush us. And I'm perfectly fine, fuck you very much for asking."

When Midorima continued to look concerned, one of the other guys around the circle helpfully attempted to explain the situation. "Miyaji's just a little emotional right now. It's not every day that the one and only Takao Kazunari confesses to you, after all; his heart’s having trouble handling it.”

Midorima looked at Takao, confused. And even though Takao knew that he had done nothing wrong, that didn't stop him from squirming anyway.

"Don't believe their cruel lies, Shin-chan!" he responded, figuring that if the rest of the team was going to play this kinda tense moment off as a joke, then he could as well. "The captain means nothing to me- you already know that you're the one I love the most!" 

But rather than recognizing his words as the blatant melodrama that Takao hoped to god the rest of the team saw them as, the green-haired boy seemed to take them seriously. At least, if the the way he continued to stare at Takao, maybe with a somewhat deeper frown than before, was any indication. 

"I'd like to rephrase my question," Midorima eventually responded, after a few moments of contemplation. "Is the entire team sick? And should I be worried that it's contagious?"

Miyaji growled. "For the last fucking time, I'm not-"

"Nah, man, they're fine." The unfortunately-goateed center from before cut his captain off smoothly, and then proceeded to throw a friendly punch to Midorima’s knee (the only part of Midorima could reach from his position on the floor). This action had probably been calculated to reassure his teammate. It didn't work. "Or if they are sick, it’s just lovesick or something, you know?”

Midorima took a little step away from the other boy, bringing him just outside arm’s reach. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," he said dryly. 

"Love-sickness! You know, that feeling you get when you see the person you like, and your stomach hurts, and you think that you're gonna hurl but you don't, and after a while you learn to actually like it? This is the magical world of emotion that the captain and Takao are sharing right now."

Midorima threw Takao a quick glance, one eyebrow raised. Takao tried to respond with an apologetic smile, but his boyfriend’s eyes flicked away from him before he could fully execute it. “Ah. That certainly sounds unpleasant."

"Midorima, Midorima. You're killing me here." The center shook his head in exaggerated disappointment. "Are you really trying to make me believe that you have never felt that way before? Never reveled in the bittersweet tang of young love?”

The shooter shrugged. “I try not to let it affect my basketball performance, in any case."

Upon hearing that, Miyaji started to look even sicker than before. "So wait, wait, does that mean that even _Midorima_ has somebody that he’s going after?" He shook his head. "I guess it’s inevitable when you think about it. As long as a guy's good at sports, the ladies will line up- even if he’s a huge asshole. It’s not fair, but I guess it’s life.” 

He turned to Takao, who up until that point had been watching the scene in a confused daze. Was Midorima really talking about his inner emotions with strangers? He didn’t even talk about his inner emotions with _Takao._ ”Did you know about this?" 

His captain's brusque question jerked him out of his thoughts. "Know about what?" Takao wondered. "About Shin-chan being a normal high school student and feeling ways about people? Nah, man, I have to say I'm just as surprised as you-"

"Shut up, Takao."

"Sorry, Shin-chan."

Ignoring the pair of them as usual, Miyaji continued to think aloud. "I guess for the sake of, you know, being thorough, I should ask Midorima what his type is too. He probably wouldn't answer me though."

On the contrary, the taller boy hardly even skipped a beat before shooting back a response. "My type is orange and spherical, obviously. Speaking of which, I believe it’s time for practice to start.” He sent Miyaji a pointed look. 

And that was his big mistake. Because Miyaji Yuya was the master of the stare-down. With his arms crossed and one eyebrow quirked, he met Midorima's eyes with no sign of intimidation. "We'll start practice once you answer the question." He drummed his fingers against the side of his elbow, waiting. "The girl you're into. What's she like?" 

This time, Midorima hesitated a moment. But in the end, the appeal of being able to practice basketball won out, and he reluctantly began to speak. "I guess you could say that... _she's_... hardworking? And talented, and patient. I enjoy being around her."

Miyaji smirked. "And she's hot, right? We're all guys here, there's no need to pretend to be so pure."

"She has very beautiful eyes," Midorima admitted. He sent a quick look Takao's way, as if trying to gauge his reaction.

But Takao couldn't be bothered to figure out what Midorima was trying to say with that look. He was too busy hating the way that his heart sunk each time that Midorima used the word “she”. He knew that he should be happy that his boyfriend was taking Miyaji's questions seriously at all. Normally the only compliments he heard from Midorima were indirect, possibly even imagined, couched in insults and commands and contradictions. It should have felt nice, to hear some honesty every now and then. But in the end it just made him hyperaware of all of the lies that the two of them had come to depend on.

On an unrelated note, the headache that had been needling him before seemed to have entered a second growth stage. 

"'Beautiful eyes', huh?" their captain repeated, smirking. "That's cute. Because I'm sure that when you’re looking at her, you’re always just looking at her _eyes._ ”

Midorima frowned. "Don't be disgusting. I wouldn't- I don't think about her in that way."

Takao tried to convince himself that the stab of pain that shot through him upon hearing that was just his headache acting up again, but nope, nuh-uh, that was yet another plainly transparent lie that wasn't going to solve any of his problems.

 With a hiss of frustration he stood up from the floor, abandoning all pretense of doing warmup stretches. 

"Alright, this is getting old. Captain, stop bullying Shin-chan. Shin-chan, stop cheating on me in your head. I'm gonna go get some water, it would be really nice if we could start practice by the time I got back." 

He glanced over at them before leaving, satisfied to see that Midorima’s eyes were open wide, somewhat less satisfied to see that Miyaji's mouth was also starting to open. 

"What the hell, Takao? Are you honestly trying to tell your captain how to run practice?”

Takao shrugged. “Someone’s gotta do it.” 

And with that, he headed off for the water fountain in the hall. 

 

-

 

Takao had hoped that the distraction that came with a long, hard practice session would be sufficient to push that earlier conversation out of his head, along with that pesky headache of his that continued to throb just deep to his temples. But he was wrong. On the contrary, all of the feelings he’d been having before seemed to intensify even further as practice went on, a positive feedback loop where his existing stress made it harder and harder to tolerate the rest of the day's setbacks.

For part of their practice, they worked on some plays that the Coach had developed for the especial purpose of getting around the few flaws he had identified in Rakuzan's defense. These plays were nothing new- the team had been practicing them on and off for almost a year now, and normally Takao didn't give them a second thought. Rakuzan was Shuutoku's big rival, after all, and so it made sense that they would try to come up with ways to defeat them if their teams were to face off again. 

But try as he might, that day Takao couldn't find a way to get fired up at all over the prospect of beating anyone. Accordingly, his ballhandling was well below what he knew he was capable of. Throughout the course of the practice, he got yelled at by Miyaji a handful of times, frowned at by the coach at least once, and even got a couple of perplexed glances from Midorima, who of course was entirely unfazed by the events earlier that day and was continuing to sink three-pointers like it was his job.

Even his teammates were starting to get on his nerves, which was weird because, for the most part, Takao freaking _loved_ his teammates. Well, maybe love was a strong word, but he was at least able to consistently find the humor in whatever annoying or un-charming qualities they had, allowing him to like them even when they were acting like idiots. (And really, as far as loving a person was concerned, Takao was convinced that being able to do that was about ninety percent of the battle.) But today, it seemed like everything they said just set his teeth on edge, like their depressingly frank assessment of Shuutoku’s chances of winning the Winter Cup (slim to none, they decided, unless every member of the Generation of Miracles, Seirin’s Kagami, and Rakuzan’s entire starting lineup got conveniently injured right before the tournament) and their repeated attempts to draw him back into the “which team had the cutest manager that of course Takao as a single straight male should have an opinion on” debate. 

Needless to say, by the time the whistle blew at the end of practice, Takao felt entirely drained, only having the energy to participate in a minimal cooldown with the team before heading out to the locker rooms to change.

But after he’d changed back into his school clothes and made his way outside into the December chill, a hand grabbed his shoulder and stopped him.

Takao jumped about a foot into the air and then spun around to see Midorima, still in his practice clothes, shivering by the door. Takao regained his composure quickly enough to let out a forced little laugh. “Were you trying to _ambush_ me just now, Shin-chan? How long have you been waiting out here?”

"I thought that we had planned to stay late again today," the taller boy said, ignoring his accusations entirely. "Did you forget?”

Takao sighed. Sometimes he wished that Midorima could be better at reading the mood, at understanding that there were some, admittedly rare, instances in which Takao really just wanted to be left alone. But since Midorima was at least _trying_ to reach out to Takao and that didn’t happen anywhere near regularly enough for Takao to take it for granted, he decided that a mild reaction would probably be best.

“No, I didn’t forget,” he said, as brightly as he could manage. “Sorry, Shin-chan, It’s just that I’ve just got this killer headache today, and it’s been really hard to focus. I figure that there’s no use in trying to practice like this, so I’m going to head home.”

Midorima frowned and kept looking at Takao, as if trying to figure out whether he should believe him or not. “You should have said something earlier,” he finally said, speaking slowly. “You know that I carry ibuprofen in my bag. That could have helped with your headache.”

“Oh! You’re right, I totally forgot about that!” Takao said, hoping his voice didn’t sound as strained as he thought it did. “Wow, I’m so dumb. Hey, do you think you could give me some for the road? Because the streets are kinda loud, I don’t want it to get worse or-“

"Just come back inside," Midorima said. When Takao didn't immediately comply, the taller boy grabbed him by the elbow and gave it a sharp tug. ”You can take a break, and I'll give you some of the ibuprofen. But to leave now would be premature."

Takao considered refusing Midorima outright. It had been a long afternoon, and he really just wanted to go home and take a nap or play brainless video games for a while. It was a Friday afternoon, which meant that, imminent Winter Cup or no imminent Winter Cup, nobody other than Midorima was planning to stay after practice. There was no reason why Takao should be expected to stay in the gym all night like he normally did.

But since it was Midorima asking him to (well, _telling_ him to, but with him the two were pretty much one and the same), Takao found that he couldn't say no. And so he followed Midorima into the gym and allowed himself to be guided towards the bleachers. 

"Sit here and don't move," Midorima said. "I'll get you some water and the pills."

“Whatever you say, doc," Takao replied, smiling a little at the huff he got in response. 

"So ungrateful," he could hear Midorima mutter as he strode off towards the locker room, where his bag was stashed.

Takao waited on the bleachers for a few minutes, massaging his throbbing temples and watching the rest of the team trickle out through the doors. Normally he would have waved to them or said goodbye as they left, but for some reason he didn’t today. Maybe that meant that he was still annoyed with them from earlier? He didn't know; he wasn't used to being mad at people for stupid reasons.

He sighed and closed his eyes, digging his knuckles into his temples even harder. 

When he opened his eyes again, Midorima was there, handing him two white capsules and a half-full bottle of sports drink. "Take these. I'm going to practice my shot now, but feel free to interrupt me once you feel better. We can practice together then."

"And what if this doesn't help?" Takao asked after he swallowed the proffered pills, knocking them back with a long draught of the sports drink. "Then can I go?"

 "Why do you think that the medication won't help?" Midorima asked. "That's what medication is for. It works in a predictable and consistent way."

"Just, well, just in case it doesn't."

Midorima shot him that odd, serious look again, and held it for a few long seconds. "Are you certain that you have a headache?" he eventually asked. "Or is there something else that's bothering you?"

Even though Takao had been earnestly trying to act like everything was okay, it was almost a relief to know that Midorima could see through that, at least to some extent. 

Takao sighed. He was still holding the now-empty plastic bottle in his hand. Not knowing what else to do, he fidgeted with it. "Well I mean, I really do have a headache," he began. "But I guess I'm also a little..." He struggled to find the words. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I don't know."

"Hm."

Midorima fell silent at that, but stayed standing in front of the bleachers, rather than heading off to practice his shooting as he had planned to. It felt like he was expecting Takao to say something. Which was convenient, because, yeah, in his heart of hearts, Takao probably did want to talk about it. 

"I mean, it's like... normally I try not to dwell on things that are bad, you know? Because it's not like that ever helps the situation, and between being honest with myself and being happy, I'll pretty much always chose being happy." Takao wasn't a hundred percent sure where he was going with this. But Midorima kept looking at him in his quiet but soliciting way, and so Takao kept on babbling. "But then sometimes there's this moment when I realize that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, there's no way that I can win. And once I've had that thought once, I just kept on thinking it, even though its really dumb."

"And then you get a headache."

Takao looked up at Midorima, thrown off by his rare moment of perceptiveness. Midorima just shrugged. "It's not an uncommon thing, for a person to somatize their emotions like that. But go on. I'm sorry to interrupt."

"Nah, you didn't interrupt. I probably said too much already," Takao said with a laugh. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Hey, I think that the meds are kicking in. Want to go one-on-one for a little bit?"

"Is this about Rakuzan?" Midorima asked suddenly. Takao, who had been trying to stand up from his seat on the bleachers (this was hard to do because, contrary to what he had told Midorima not ten seconds ago, his head really did still hurt like a bitch), wobbled a little in surprise. Midorima reached out to stabilize him before continuing. ”I also heard the rest of the team talking earlier, about how they didn't believe we could win the Winter Cup. They were very blunt about it. Is that what you’re concerned about?”

"Umm, maybe?" Takao got the feeling that Rakuzan wasn’t actually in the front of his mind at all, that maybe his thoughts were still stuck on a conversation that had happened a half hour or so earlier in the day. But he wasn't about to tell Midorima that, and he _was_ less than confident about Shuutoku’s prospects of winning the cup, so he decided to just go along. "It's just frustrating, I guess. You know, the idea that it’ll be impossible for us to win unless we slip something in Rakuzan's water cooler or whatever."

"Yes, it is frustrating." 

Takao waited for Midorima to continue, to read him one of his usual lectures about the foolishness of self-doubt and the supremacy of fate or something like that. But nothing like that came.

Instead, Midorima just walked over to a stray basketball that was resting on the floor near the bottom bleacher, picked it up, and gave it a few exploratory bounces. Then he looked over at Takao. "It's time to practice,” he said.

And that was that.

Takao felt a smile coming on, probably one of the first real smiles that he had been able to manage all afternoon. It bubbled up from his belly to his chest to his cheeks, and he was amazed, like he always was, that one single person had the power to make him feel so miserable and so invincible at the same time. 

“Okay, you win. But at least let me get changed first!”

 

-

 

If Takao had time to worry about the future, he also had time to prepare for it. Although Midorima hadn't come right out and said those words when they had been practicing earlier, Takao wasn't an idiot, and he had gotten the point. 

He kept pondering this notion long after they cleared out of the gym that day, after he pedaled the rickshaw to Midorima's house and then walked back to his own as orange dusk faded into inky nighttime. He couldn’t escape the fact that Shuutoku wasn’t the team it had been the year before. No other team at their level had graduated so many starters, and Takao knew, he _accepted_ , that they were weaker for it. Their chances of winning the Winter Cup might very well be one thousand to one.

But even if that was the case, there was still a chance.

This wasn’t exactly a comforting thought. But it was the kind of thought that pushed Takao to keep going, to practice even when his head was aching. To keep believing that, even if what he wanted seemed impossible at the moment, it could someday be obtained if he just stopped worrying and started working.

 

-

 

On an unrelated note, as soon as Takao got home that evening, he got out a piece of paper and began to write out a list of all the strategies he could use to make that weekend’s dinner with the Midorima family a success. Because at this point, he was simply tired of worrying about it. 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Six minute and forty-nine seconds to go in the practice match with the high school down the road, and Shuutoku was leading 84-73. To an outsider this may have looked like an exciting score. Competent teams overcame eleven-point gaps on a regular basis- even with only a few minutes left on the clock, it could still be anyone’s game. 

However, this hypothetical "outsider" would have been misled. 

"Good hustle, Nagakawa!” Coach Nakatani called from the bench, where he was flanked on both sides by four out of the five Shuutoku starters. Their regular lineup had only been allowed to play for all of about eight minutes during the first quarter before the coach had subbed in their second string. Takao supposed that this was a good decision- that way, the practice match could be a learning experience for their less-developed players rather than just the usual crushing display of Shuutoku supremacy. 

“And Kobayashi, you've got to get back on defense quicker. Don’t think that they’re going to stop the play just to wait for you,” he added as a certain shaky-looking first year jogged past him during a moment of downtime. 

"Yes, coach!" the kid panted out.

“Don't waste time responding to me- focus on the game!"

"Yes, coach!"

A snort, barely perceptible over the ambient noise of the gym, came from Takao's left, and he turned to see Miyaji shaking his head. The blonde must have seen him glance his way, because a few seconds later Takao felt an elbow nudging at his bicep. "Freshmen, right?" his captain said, as if this were a joke that required no further explanation.

Takao shrugged mildly. “Aw, they’re okay. They’ll figure it out eventually…”

If Miyaji didn't seem quite satisfied with the reply, Takao didn't notice it. The action had started up once again on the court, and he didn't want to miss a thing.

Although the other team had started off with possession of the ball, it didn't take Shuutoku long to steal it out from under their noses. In a blur of orange and black, their backup point guard streaked back towards their side of the court, on a flawless trajectory towards the basket. Takao leaned forward expectantly, his breath caught in his throat. No matter how many games they won, no matter how many thousands of points they had scored during his high school career, those few tense moments before a shot never ceased to get his heart pumping. 

"Kobayashi!" he heard himself shouting. "Come on, take it home!"

But in the end, Kobayashi was not able to take the ball anywhere, much less “home”. He was too busy tripping over his own feet, awkwardly trying to catch himself before he fell, and letting the ball get away from him in the process. The bench let out a collective groan as the other team snapped it up.

"Well. That was unfortunate," Midorima commented from Takao's other side. He pushed his glasses up further on his nose, as if adjusting them in just the right way could make their B-string’s performance less painful to watch.

Miyaji, on the other hand, was not one to mince words. "Ugh, I can’t believe this. I _told_ that kid not to get new shoes right before a game, you all _heard_ me tell him, but then he pulls this shit anyway and brings the whole team down..."

Takao succeeded in tuning the captain's rant out just in time to see the other team score a three-pointer off of the steal. He bit his lip. 84-76 now. When was the last time they'd let a team get within ten points of them?

For that reason, nobody was surprised when the coach called a timeout after the next play. 

"Takao. Midorima. You two are back in." 

The two of them nodded. This was probably for the best. 

 

-

 

Midorima and Takao hit the ground running. Five minutes and fifty-seven seconds remained on the clock when they first stepped onto the court. Within that time, they managed to nearly triple the eight-point gap from before, netting them a final score of 103-80. This was a respectable outcome by anyone's standards. The team didn't have to go home in shame now, which was good. They had reasserted Shuutoku's dominance, which Takao supposed was also good. 

But really, Takao hadn’t been considering any of those factors as he raced back and forth on the court, Hawk Eye scanning the scenery as he assembled plays like an atlas ofmaps in his mind. What he had mostly been focusing on was Midorima, and Midorima’s movements, and trying to pin down just what it was, whatever subtle thing it might be, that was different about them today compared to normal. 

The change wasn’t a bad one. At this point, he knew what a “bad” change looked like. He had seen Midorima at his worst before, when he was tired and pissed off, run ragged by opponents right on the edge of being too strong for them. He had also seen him at his other extreme, when they were playing against a team so far below their level that Midorima had trouble giving them the attention they were due- and nothing like today was even remotely like _that_. 

Probably nobody other than Takao would have been able to detect these changes, because no matter how Midorima was feeling, his ability to shoot and score never suffered. But comparing those games to one like today's, where the competition was just stiff enough to make them take notice, but never really enough to shut them down… 

It was almost as if Midorima were showing off, Takao thought. Not in the blatant way that some of the other guys in their year did, pulling off half-cocked "formless shots" and dunking hard enough to rip the hoop right off of the backboard, but in the subtly confident manner that Midorima adopted sometimes when he had no doubts about the future (or at least the immediate future). When he had done all he could to prepare and Cancers were ranked first and knew, with that crazy Midorima-ish kind of faith, that everything was going to go his way.

It was something in the arch of his wrist as he followed through on the shot, in the fluid turn of his hips as he transitioned from receiving a pass to putting a shot up, in the little half-smile that touched at his mouth whenever Takao caught his eye. Midorima was having _fun_ today, for whatever reason.

And the more that Takao watched him, the more caught up in Midorima's own confidence he became.

Plays that Takao and Midorima made together were always functional. Even when the heat was hot, they had a pretty good thing going as far as getting balls through hoops went. But Takao couldn't remember the last time that those plays had also been so _beautiful_. He and Midorima were on the same wavelength that day, and when the two of them flowed, so did the ball. Defenders crashed off of their aura like waves against a rock, their presence hardly even registering in Takao’s field of view as they breezed across the court. And even though he knew in his mind that he must be working hard, that he was breathing fast and sweating and that that one ankle of his that gave him trouble sometimes was starting to twinge, he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind that just being on the court with Midorima right then was entirely effortless. 

Takao wanted more than anything to grab that feeling with all ten fingers, to trap it in a box and live in it. To always remember what it was like to sense Midorima without even seeing him, and to know that Midorima felt that connection just as strongly. But moments and fingers tend not to mix so well, and five minute and fifty-seven seconds was all the time that Takao was able to snag before the final whistle blew. 

After that, the rest of their team streamed onto the court, offering congratulations, slapping him on the back. And that was kinda nice too. But still, Takao couldn't help but wish that the game had gone on a little longer.

The whistle blew for both teams to line up, and Takao managed to find his way through the small crowd of orange jerseys back to Midorima’s side. He wanted to say something, to acknowledge what the two of them had just shared, but didn’t quite have the words.

Quietly, Takao let out a laugh. “Looks like we won again, Shin-chan.”

Midorima looked over at him. His face was still flushed from exertion, with green bangs sticking out at odd angles across his forehead where he’d brushed them away, but his response sounded as unruffled as ever. “That’s only natural, Takao.”

Takao couldn’t help but grin at that. And when his boyfriend quirked his lips in return, Takao somehow knew that his meaning had gotten through. 

 

-

 

The match had taken place in Shuutoku's own gym, so unfortunately that meant that they were the ones who had to clean up after the other team bowed out and headed back to their bus. But just as they were finishing up, they noticed a few intruders- a pair of girls wearing their school’s uniform- had made their way onto the court.

"Um, excuse me? Would one of you happen to be Miyaji-kun? The basketball team captain?”

Miyaji, who had been hard at work relocating all of the abandoned plastic water bottles they found to the proper garbage receptacle, looked up at them and then immediately frowned. "Who's asking?”

The taller of thetwo, a curvy girl with wild black hair, extended a hand. “Nice to meet you! My name’s Ootsubo Tae, and this is my friend Ogawa Tatsuki. We're writing an article for the sports page of the school newspaper, so would you mind if we asked you guys a few questions?"

Miyaji frowned, the usual crinkle between his eyebrows furrowing even deeper. Takao, who was helping Midorima wipe down the courtside benches nearby, couldn't blame him. He too couldn't help but think that that name sounded a little too familiar for comfort... 

"Ootsubo Tae?” their captain repeated. “Don't tell me you're Ootsubo Taisuke's little sister."

She giggled. "Um, it's a possibility?" 

Miyaji crossed his arms. "Why would you want to write an article about the basketball team, then?" he wondered. "I'm sure you've already heard enough about it more than you ever wanted to, with your brother being our old captain and all. How's he doing, by the way?"

"Oh, he's fine. He made it onto his university’s team. I've been to a few of their games; they seem to be doing pretty well," Tae said, fiddling with the strap of her bag. "He was the one who told me that you guys normally have a big tournament around this time of year, so I thought it would make a good story. That's all."

"Hm."

Unfortunately, the task of cleaning off the benches was not one that took a great deal of time, and so Takao soon found that he and Midorima were ready for the next step of their cleanup duties: picking the benches off and hauling them into the storage closet. 

Takao breathed out, frustrated. How was he supposed to eavesdrop on this conversation from all the way over in the _storage closet_?

He tried to send Midorima a non-verbal clue that he wanted to stay put for asecond, shooting a surreptitious glance towards the captain and journalism club girls chatting a few meters away from them, but either he wasn't being obvious enough or else he was overestimating his boyfriend’s ability to pick up on something like that. Midorima was a straightforward kind of guy, after all. He didn't have the nose for mischief that would drive someone to listen in on other peoples' conversations. 

As if to prove this very point, Midorima chose that moment to speak up. ”Takao. Stop zoning out and help me move these benches,” he commanded.

"Shh, Shin-chan, just wait a sec." The time for subtlety was over, Takao judged, and since none of the others were paying attention to them anyway, he decided to just straight-up _point_ in the captain's direction. "There's some girls from the school paper here, I want to hear what they want."

Midorima looked over, frowned. “Isn’t that Kimura’s new girlfriend? I seem to remember him introducing us the other day….”

"Wait, _what_? Where was I when this happened? When did you and Kimura get to be secret BFFs?“

Now it was Midorima's turn to hush Takao. "Shut up, I’d like to hear this as well."

Miyaji seemed to have been waffling for the past few moments. Takao could almost imagine the argument that their captain was having in his mind: should he turn the girls away like he obviously wanted to and risk the news of his rudeness getting back to Miyaji’s older brother (who, if Takao remembered correctly, was at the same school as the elder Ootsubo), or should he agree to the interview and waste a half hour of everyone’s free time that afternoon?

Eventually, he must have decided to err on the side of caution, if the grudging nod that he eventually directed at the two girls was any indicator.

"Okay, whatever, we'll answer a few questions. The team’ll be done cleaning up in a minute; I’ll grab a few of our starters and we can talk then.” 

Tae and the other girl shared a smile. "Thank you so much! And don't worry, we'll be sure to make you guys sound really cool in the article."

"You'd better," Miyaji said. Then, he looked over at Takao and Midorima, who at this point had abandoned any pretense of productivity and stood openly staring at the little group. "And _you two_ had better get back to work. What, you think that you can get out of chores just because you can play ball a little bit well?”

Midorima jerked his gaze away from them right away and went back to pretending to clean, but Takao laughed. “Hey,you’re the one standing around and chatting up girls, not us.”

Miyaji rolled his eyes. "Just get those benches away. I’m not above reinstating the old ‘ten pushups for every point you let the other team score’ policy, you know.”

Takao laughed. "So harsh." He looked over at the girls, shooting them one of trademark winning smiles. Ootsubo’s sister looked mostly unfazed by this, but the other girl, who wore a sporty ponytail and a low-end camera in a strap around her neck, blushed and looked down. “We’ll talk to you later then, okay?”

The girl with the camera nodded a little more vigorously than necessary. As she did so, Takao heard a “tch” noise come from behind him.

“And you call the captain a womanizer,” Midorima said, keeping his voice low enough that only Takao could hear it. He gestured at one of the benches. “Now help me carry this.”

And Takao did help him. Just, not before letting out a little snort of laughter. “I’m not _womanizing,_ Shin-chan,” he said, as he hoisted up his end of the bench. They started walking towards the corner of the gym, where the storage closet was located. "It's called being friendly. I guess that's something neither you nor the captain would know anything about, though.”

Midorima let out a loud, long sigh. "Shut up, Takao."

 

-

 

Ten minutes later, the gym was back to its normal state of mostly-clean-ness, and the pair of enthusiastic young reporters had wrangled the starting five (plus a few extra stragglers) over to the bleachers. 

"Okay, so we'll try to keep this short and sweet," Tae began, twirling a pen in her fingers. She was holding a small, crisp-looking notebook. Takao noticed that it was open to the very first page. He wondered how long she had been with the school paper, and whether she had ever written an article for it before. Surely this late in the year a notebook ought to be filled with, well, _notes_ , right? 

Oblivious to his musings, she continued. "I have a couple of questions I want to ask regarding, hm, I guess mostly regarding that tournament this month, but after that I'd also like to get to know a little about the team in general and any other interesting stories that you want to tell about the basketball club. I’m thinking that this will be more like an exposé than like a serious structured article, so feel free to talk about whatever! And then after I'm done, Tatsuki-chan would like to take a few group photos."

She motioned over to the girl holding the camera. Tatsuki hadn't spoken much ever since the pair of them had entered the gym, so Takao was a little surprised to hear her clear her throat and make an announcement of her own.

"I already took a few photos during the game," she began. Her voice had a nervous lilt to it. "I hope that none of you mind! I'm really sorry that we didn't ask beforehand- we wanted to, but by the time we got here the game had already started. I was able to take a few action shots, and some of them look good, so it would be great if we could use them for the article…"

Takao could see some of other other guys’ eyes starting to glaze over after the first few rapidfire sentences, and so he put an end to the girl’s ramblings with a warm smile. "Don't worry about it, we're used to being photographed. I think we all signed a release at the beginning of the year anyway, so you can go ahead and use whatever pictures you want."

“Oh, um, thank you very much," she said, sounding relieved. She made an attempt at looking up to meet Takao's eyes, but blushed and changed course before she could quite arrive there.

"Yeah, thanks a lot!" Tae cut in, clapping Takao on the shoulder hard enough to knock him off balance. "Now that's settled, let's move on to the interview. First question: can you give the folks back home some background info on the Winter Cup? Where and when is it going to be held this year?”

Miyaji, as if irritated by the amount of attention Takao had been hogging, jumped in to field that first question. Someone else answered the question after that, followed by a teammate who cut in to give an alternate opinion, which prompted ageneral debate. And as easily as that, the interview was in full swing. 

Takao supposed that he should probably contribute as well. Even Midorima had stepped up to the plate once or twice, describing in meticulous detail a few improvements they’d made to their training schedule and how these would help Shuutoku on its road to success. Takao was also one of the tactical cornerstones of their team, it seemed like he should be bursting with things to add.

However, some cynical part of his brain kept telling him that giving a thoughtful answer would just be a waste of time, that the article would probably end up omitting any of that substantial, technical stuff in favor of listing everybody's "tips and tricks for getting in shape" or whatever that silly question Tae had asked them a few minutes ago had been. 

(He had read Shuutoku’s newspaper before. Suffice it to say, their journalism club was not as highly regarded as their basketball one.)

For that reason, although the interview itself was getting more and more lively by the minute as they moved on to sharing funny stories from that summer’s training camp, Takao just ended up feeling increasingly disconnected from it. So he tried to find another way to occupy his time. 

And that was how he ended up sitting hunched over Tatsuki's camera on the outskirts of where the group was sitting, almost feeling the nervousness emanating from her body as she guided him through some of the "action shots" she had taken during the game. 

Takao hadn't been expecting much in the way of photography skill from a fidgety high schooler with a beat-up looking camera, but even if he’d had higher standards the pictures would still have easily surpassed them. They were _good_ , genuinely good, all crisp and neat and brimming with movement. Looking at them was almost like being back in the game again.

"You know that these are awesome, right?" Takao eventually said, after perusing a dozen or so from the first half of the game. "Haha, are you sure you're not a professional?"

To Tatsuki's credit, it only took a few seconds after that sudden compliment for her to regain her composure and stutter out a response. "Um, thank you, I've been practicing a lot."

"It shows."

Tatsuki flushed and gripped the camera tighter. "I think there are some better pictures at the end, let me try to find those." She focused her nervous energy into tapping at the forward button at a frenetic pace, speeding through the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth until she found what she was looking for. "Like here, this is where you started to play again. Some of these turned out well."

"Ah, you're right!" Takao exclaimed, as a zoomed-in shot of Midorima, frozen in his best shooting form just a split second after the ball had left his hands, blinked onto the screen. He leaned in to look at it closer. That intense look on his boyfriend's face right then. Well. That was pretty nice. "You should definitely put a picture of Shin-chan in the article; he always looks so cool.” Impatient to see what other photos she had in store, Takao clicked to the next image. This was one of him in the middle of a pass. Yawn. He immediately clicked through it. "Oh, well that's me, so it's boring, but let's see what else-"

And then suddenly, he couldn't talk anymore. Because that next picture… 

Well, if pictures had fists and the capacity to punch people in the face with them, Takao would have two black eyes and a bloody nose by now. 

Objectively, Takao had to admit that it wasn't the most interesting photo in the batch. Tatsuki had shot it during a moment of downtime, when the two teams were getting ready for a throw-in or walking over to a timeout or something like that. Probably the latter, because Midorima and Takao seemed to both be heading towards the sidelines, with their backs to the camera. The picture was centered on their two orange jerseys, a number 6 standing up straight and proud, with a slightly lower number 10 fluttering around by its side. The Takao in the picture was looking over at Midorima, a smile on his sweaty, bedraggled face, whereas Midorima was looking straight forward, as if trying to ignore his troublesome teammate. But the hand he had rested- awkwardly, almost nervously- on Takao's shoulder told a different story. 

Takao scrutinized the picture for a few seconds, earnestly trying to find anything about it that wasn't exactly right. He searched the shadows, on the hunt for any peculiarities in the lighting of the photo. He scanned the angles for awkwardness and the background for photobombs. But in the end, he came up with nothing. 

The silence must have stretched on longer than he'd realized, and eventually Tatsuki cleared her throat. "Um, is this one okay?" 

“Okay? It’s _perfect_.” Grudgingly, Takao tore his eyes away from the image so that he could look over at Tatsuki. “I think it’s the best one yet.”

The girl met his eye contact with a shy smile. "I'm glad you like it."

"I love it." 

All at once, he was overcome with the urge to show the picture to Midorima, to see whether his boyfriend would like it as much as Takao did. One of the many frustrating side effects of keeping their relationship a secret was the unavoidable dearth of “couple photos” featuring the two of them. Sure, Takao had a few selfies that he had forced Midorima into posing for with him hidden somewhere in the back corners of his phone, and he guessed that they were cute enough. But still. Nothing beat a nice candid shot. 

"Here, mind if I borrow this for one sec?" Takao heard himself asking. "I just want to show my friend."

Tatsuki nodded her assent and handed the camera over. Midorima was seated a little ways down from him on the bench. Takao slid over and got his attention with a gentle punch to the arm. "Shin-chan, take a look at this!” 

“What are you- Takao!”

Deaf to his boyfriend’s objections, Takao shoved the camera in front of Midorima’s face. Midorima had no choice but to take a look.

 And then he blinked and took a second, closer look, entirely of his own volition. 

Takao leaned in. "Cute, right?" he murmured.

It took Midorima a few seconds to respond. "I suppose it's not hideous," he finally managed, his eyes still glued to the picture. "I do wonder what she was trying to accomplish here, however. I’m no photographer, but even I can tell that this isn’t an ‘action shot’.”

“So what? It’s nice.” Takao looked down at the picture again, unable to stop the warm feeling that rose up in his chest as soon as he laid eyes on it. “I’m going to try to get Tatsuki-chan to email this one to me. If she says yes, do you want me to send you a copy?”

Midorima sniffed. “I suppose I can’t stop you.”

Takao grinned even wider. He had just opened his mouth to keep teasing his boyfriend when a question came and shut him up. 

“Ah, Takao-kun! Sorry, I forgot you were over there. So what about you? What's your favorite part of being on the basketball team?"

The question took Takao by surprise. It was lucky that he was a quick talker (or at least extremely proficient in coming up with ways to stall for time). "Oh wow, I don't know. Do I really have to just choose one thing?" he wondered. 

His response was met by a chuckles from the rest of the team. "I guess that's Takao for you," he heard someone murmur. "Enthusiastic as ever." 

Tae looked amused as well. "It can be a few things, don't worry. Just whatever you want to share."

“Well in that case, I guess…” Takao forced himself from looking back down at the picture (or over at Midorima himself) while he thought. It wouldn’t do for an _honest_ answer to that question to make it into the school paper, after all. “I don't know. I guess the basketball club just seems like a home away from home, you know? I like my team a lot, and so being able to come to practice every day and watch everyone get a little bit better, a little bit closer to our goals- it’s really satisfying.”

Takao heard a snort in response to that, and recognized that it must have come from Miyaji. And that right there was a thing that he was _not_ so sure he liked about the basketball team: being able to recognize a person by their sound effects alone.

"You sound like a greeting card. It's ridiculous," Miyaji explained.

"No, this is good stuff!" Tae took a second to look up from her frantic notebook-scribbling to disagree. “Anything else?"

Takao shook his head. "Nah, that's all. Don't get me wrong, I really love this club, but it would be hard to explain to you exactly why I like it, you know?"

He snuck a look over at Midorima at that point. As expected of the one person who fully understood the extent of Takao’s devotion to the club, his boyfriend had his eyes fixed on the floor, a hint of red touching the tips of his ears. It was cute. Takao had to bite back a smile as he turned back to Tae. 

"I guess that makes sense," she said, finishing up her notes and checking her watch. "Well, I think I've taken up enough of your time today. We'll just take a couple of group photos and get out of your hair then, alright?" 

Tatsuki jumped into action at that point, having everyone stand and arranging them in front of the bleachers. She reclaimed her camera from Takao and took a few quick, businesslike shots, and then, after she had reviewed them on the screen, told everyone that they were good to go. The two groups said goodbye and parted ways then, the journalism club girls disappearing into the hallway as the basketball players headed to the locker room. 

Once they arrived, the team (quite predictably) began to tease Kimura without mercy. Takao wasn't certain how the news that the younger Kimura and the younger Ootsubo were at item had leaked out- could it really be possible that everybody on the team _including Midorima_ had heard this tidbit of gossip before he had? But in the end, he decided to just let it go. Let it go, and chuckle quietly as the rest of the guys messed with their serious-faced teammate.

"So Kimura, what's _your_ favorite part of being on the basketball team? Using it to get an in with your captain's little sister?”

"Kimura's tips and tricks for staying in shape: instead of eating real food, try snacking on parfaits instead!" 

The longer they went on, the redder Kimura’s face got."I keep telling you guys, she's not my girlfriend! She's just... just a friend."

"A friend you want to get with, though, right? Come on, she’s cute. You can't tell me that you haven't even thought about it."

"I... she... it's not like-"

"If you've really never thought about it, why are you so nervous to talk about her?"

And then suddenly, a new voice cut into the general babble. ”Perhaps because Kimura knows that, no matter what he says at this juncture, you're going to give him grief for it?”

"Mi- Midorima!"

Takao frowned. Normally Midorima wasn't the kind of guy to go barging into other peoples' conversations. But then again, he _also_ normally wasn't the kind of guy who knew who was dating who before Takao did, so yeah. It was weirdness all around, but Takao decided not to worry about it right then. He had bigger things on his plate. 

Takao half-listened to the argument as he finished changing and packed up his bag. After saying a quick farewell to the rest of the team that he was fairly certain not a single person had heard, Takao picked up his bag and made his way out of the locker room. 

But before he could make it to the outside doors, he was accosted by one tall and grumpy blond.

"Takao. Come over here."

Takao was in a hurry, that was true, but he still stopped dead in his tracks the moment he heard the captain give that order. Whether Takao liked it or not, Miyaji Yuya's commands were the type that brooked no argument. 

Takao located the source of the voice- Miyaji was standing over by a cabinet near the gym doors, looking through the pane glass at basketball trophies of bygone days- and obediently walked over. "Hey, captain. What's up?"

"Midorima isn't with you?" Miyaji asked, after scanned the hallway behind the second year. 

Takao shook his head. "I'm kinda in a rush today. Places to go, ya know?"

"Hmm. I see."

The two of them stood there for a few seconds, shuffling their shoes and not speaking. It was a big waste of time, and Takao was just on the verge of dropping a second hint that he was in a hurry and that Miyaji was a huge douche for keeping him late when the blond spoke again. 

"You ever get the feeling that Midorima's in love with you?”

Whatever Takao had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. He dealt with the surprise by promptly choking on his tongue, sending him into a round of hacking coughs. Miyaji waited for him to finish with a prickly impatience. 

When he was finally able to breathe again, Takao's first order of business was to force out a laugh. “Wanna run that by me again? You think that _Shin-chan_... wow, Miyaji. Just wow. That's a good one." 

"Don't act like it's impossible," Miyaji snapped. His face was even grumpier than usual, as if Takao's flippant response had caused him personal offense. "Maybe you don't notice because you're a brainless idiot, but he always acts really different when you’re around.”

Takao looked at him with a dubious expression, one that for once he didn’t even have to fake. Obviously he didn’t doubt that Midorima saw him in a romantic light. However, it would take a lot of solid evidence to convince him that what Midorima felt for him was strong enough to manifest itself to outsiders. Especially when his boyfriend was trying so hard to hide what they were. “Different like how?” 

“Different like…” Miyaji paused for a second, as if trying to figure it out for himself. “Well for example, he spends a _l_ ot of time just _looking_ at you. Like, a weird amount of time."

”Oh come on. How's he supposed to play basketball without looking at the point guard? By that logic, wouldn't every person on the team also be gay for me?"

"Don't be such an asshole!” Miyaji growled. “I'm obviously not talking about when you're on the court! And that's not the only thing. Like, what was that with that picture you showed him today?"

Takao shrugged. "It was just a picture of me and Shin-chan during the game. It wasn't _sexy_ or anything, if that's what you're worried about."

"No _duh_. As if a picture with you in it could possibly be sexy." Miyaji rolled his eyes. "But that's why it was weird. I was sitting next to him, you know. I saw the picture too. And it was really fucking boring. So what I want to know is, why would he get so flustered over a picture of the two of you just standing there, if he didn't already have some kind of weird boner for you?"

"Oh come on, it wasn’t that boring!” Takao tried to explain. "Like, the composition was nice, and the colors..." Miyaji raised an eyebrow, and Takao laughed in frustration. “Give it a rest, Miyaji. It's been obvious from day one that you don't like Shin-chan. You don't need to stand around making stuff up about him for me to know that. You've made your point."

"Jeez, I try to help a kouhai out, and then he yells at me. Why do I even bother?" Miyaji lamented.

"I know, right? Kids these days. So ungrateful." Takao shook his head with an air of mock indignance. "So, does that mean I can go now?"

Miyaji was not impressed by his sarcasm. "You'll go when I say you can go," he said, "and I'll say you can go as soon as you shut up and listen to me for a second. I already told you that I think that Midorima's got a thing for you. You can disagree all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that you're stupid and I'm definitely right. So as your captain, I’m going to have to ask you to nip this in the bud before it affects the team. I know you think it's funny to flirt with Midorima, but it's not. It is going to backfire eventually, and you have to stop.”

”What? Since when do I _flirt_ with him?”

“Are you kidding me? You literally said that you loved him in front of the entire team a few days ago. You don’t see how doing shit like that might be leading him on?”

Takao frowned. All of this was a lot to process at once. A lot of words, and a lot of strangely distorted half-truths that made it difficult to ascertain what Miyaji a) suspected, b) knew, and c) was trying to explicitly tell him. 

He must have stayed silent for too long, because next thing he knew Miyaji's gruff voice was speaking again. "Do you get what I'm trying to say?" 

"Yeah, I get it. I’ll try to tone it down.” Takao responded. And, since the more nervous he felt the less serious he tended to act, he followed that up with a cheeky grin. "But, supposing he does like me: even if I stop flirting with him or whatever you're calling normal conversations between friends now, that won't make him stop.” He gestured down across his body with a hand, smile widening on his face. “Because really, what’s not to like?"

Miyaji frowned. "You're not taking this seriously."

Takao aimed an exaggerated wink at him. ”I always take you seriously, captain."

"I swear to god, Takao..." Miyaji growled. But eventually he gave up on trying to act menacing and simply shook his head. "You are so stupid. I don't know why I even try. Do whatever you want. Just realize that, if you break Midorima's heart or whatever and he starts sucking at basketball, it will have been completely and totally your fault. That’s all I’m trying to say.” 

And before Takao could even come up with a way to defend himself, to construct some lie about Miyaji being deluded and it being entirely inconceivable that the path they were on might lead to somebody’s heart being broken, his captain strode back into the gym. 

Takao remained in place for a few moments. He watched the gym door swing shut behind Miyaji, listened to the clatter of activity from inside gradually diminish until the latch clicked into place. He told himself not to think about the conversation that had just happened, or the way that his chest had ached ever since Miyaji had first said that Midorima was in love with him. Takao had been waiting a long time for Midorima to say those words, and hearing them come from the wrong person- from somebody who didn’t know what he was saying, who would be unlikely to wish them well if he did- felt odd. Not terrible, necessarily. But odd. 

In the end, he decided that since he couldn’t quite figure out what to make of the conversation, he might as well just push it to the back of his mind, set it aside to revisit at another time. Because tonight, he had a family of Midorimas to win over. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha so yeah, this chapter is definitely not worth the nearly 2-month wait. But maybe since it's super long that makes up for it a little?
> 
> I'm not aware of any canon information about Midorima and Takao's families other than the fact that they have sisters, so all of my descriptions of them are completely made up. There's a little bit of tennis-related stuff in this chapter that's also entirely non-factual. Just thought I'd put that out there, in case anybody wonders.

“Ugh, we’ve been walking literally forever! Onee-chan, I thought you said that it was close. You’re such a liar.”

“I never said that Shin-chan’s house was close. Only that it was walking distance.”

“Walking distance? Ha, maybe for you and your big ugly man shoes, but some of us here are wearing _heels_. Have you ever tried to walk in heels? Just going to the next room is further than walking distance sometimes. Tell him, mom."

Takao’s mother, a small, birdlike woman with flyaway black hair to match, hummed out a noise that might have been interpreted as sympathy if she could have gotten it to sound a little less bored. Clearly she wanted no part of the brother-sister bickering that was raging in front of her. "Nobody said that you had to wear such fancy shoes, Moriko. That was your own decision."

His little sister rolled her eyes. "I mean, not really? Kazu was the one who went on and on for like an hour about how I had to look 'classy but also cute but also not cuter than Midorima's little sister because that would be rude', and seriously, what do you even _do_ with that? I’m not a miracle worker! So out of all my dresses this was the only one that stood up to his crazy standards, and then these were the only shoes that matched the dress..."

"Really? Out of the approximately seven thousand pairs of shoes in your closet, these were the only ones that matched?”

"Oh shut _up_! We all already know that you have no sense of fashion; you don't need to keep rubbing it in our faces.” Moriko heaved a dramatic sigh. “You know, I used to think that having a gay big brother would be fun. That we would, like, go shopping together and get our hair done and drool over Kise Ryouta together and stuff- but no-oo. You're still as gross and boring as ever. What did I ever do to deserve this?"

Takao sniggered. "Oh man, Kise Ryouta. What a punk. I told you about how we beat his team at Interhigh this year, right?”

"Yeah, you didn't shut up about it for like a month," Moriko reminded him. "I'm still mad you didn't get me an autograph, by the way."

"Maybe I would have gotten one for you if you didn't call me gross and boring all the time."

"And maybe I wouldn't think you were so gross and boring if you brought me cute models' autographs," Moriko said. "It's what a _nice_ brother would do."

"Well, it's a good thing that I'm a terrible brother then."

"Finally, something we agree on.”

Takao just shook his head. “I still don’t get why you like that guy so much, though. I mean, there are other guys out there that are better than him at basketball, so-”

“Believe it or not, normal people don't judge how attractive someone is by how well they play sports. I mean, I guess Midorima-kun's lucky that you think like that, because how else would he get someone to fall for him? But normally how cute and funny and nice a person is matters more." She let out a wistful sigh. "And Kise Ryouta is _so_ cute and funny and nice..."

Takao chuckled at the star-struck look on her face. In the most deeply-buried, secret, never-tell-Shin-chan-ever corners of his heart, he supposed that if his little sister had to have an unhealthily obsessive crush on a celebrity, she could do worse than to fall for a guy like Kise. He did have at least _some_ redeeming qualities. Not the ones that his fangirls thought that they liked him for, of course- all of that posturing and pretending to be cool clearly had nothing to do with the half-asshole, half-goofball that Takao had come to know. However, there was no doubting that Kise was one hell of a basketball player. Not quite as good as Midorima, but that was inevitable. It didn’t change the fact that players as dedicated to improvement as Kise was were few and far between.

“…Kise Ryouta would _never_ make a girl walk like a hundred miles in high heels; he would be like a cool prince and be all like ‘oh, does it hurt? Let me carry you on my back’, and, _ew_ , speaking of which, I think I’ve got a _blister_. This is all your fault. I’m totally going to sue you for damages.”

Takao looked down at her foot. He had to admit, it did looked a little squished and flattened inside the bedazzled silver pumps. Beauty was pain, he supposed. But he let out a laugh anyways. “Okay. Let me know how that goes.”

“You think I can’t do it?”

Takao half-listened as Moriko continued her histrionic rant, chuckling at the appropriate parts and acting affronted at the more abusive ones. Normally he would have given his little sister his full attention- what with school and basketball and Midorima, Takao felt like he was hardly ever at home anymore, and he missed the silliness that he and Moriko had always used to get up to together. 

But all the same, he couldn’t stop himself from continuing to silently review the list of ingratiation strategies for Midorima's family that he had been working on. For the past few hours (or, well, possibly weeks, to a lesser extent), these had been cycling on repeat in the back of his mind, not giving him any rest, making it hard to focus on anything else.

He had already set a few of these plans into motion. Or at least had tried. He'd instructed Moriko to compliment something about the Midorimas' house as soon as they entered, had even done a few practice rounds with her to make sure that the remark sounded as unscripted as possible. He had pleaded with his mother to keep her nervous drinking to two glasses of wine or less. And, most importantly, he had impressed upon them again and again that, to Midorima's parents and sister, the two of them were nothing more than friends, and that any insinuations to the contrary would, to put it lightly, place a damper on that evening’s festivities.

There were a few other tricks he had up his sleeve, like a list of conversation starters for their parents. He’d grilled Midorima for details about their hobbies, their travels, anything that might put them on common ground with his own mother, and this interrogation had been surprisingly successful.

Midorima’s little sister Chiyako was a different challenge entirely, however. She had to be the quietest eight-year-old that he had ever met, all serious green eyes and tightly braided hair and a vocabulary that even Takao had trouble keeping up with at times. He couldn't count the number of times that he had tried to get her to come out of her shell during his visits to Midorima's house in the past, how many times he had tried to ask her about her day ("satisfactory."), her hobbies ("reading."), her opinions on basketball (“I prefer tennis.”). He had even tried some of the tactics that always gotten Moriko fired up back when she'd been that age, such as blaring some music from his phone to start a spontaneous dance party or stealing her pen while she was trying to study to provoke a spirited chase around the room. But all of these ploys had left the green-haired munchkin entirely unimpressed. He’d been to their house like a million times at this point, but Takao still couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen her smile. 

He shook his head. Maybe it was just genetics. In any case, the fact remained that, if Takao himself had failed to get Chiyako enthused about life- _Takao_ , who had not only managed to become friends with the surliest member of Shuutoku's basketball team, but also to date him more or less successfully for a good nine months- he figured that the rest of his family wouldn't fare any better. 

Anxiety twisted in Takao’s stomach, coming out as a quiet sigh. No matter how many times Midorima explained to him why this dinner was necessary, there was still not a single part of him that thought that it was a good idea. How was it possible, then, that he could still want so desperately for it to go well? 

Beside him, Moriko had started to grumble again. “So, to recap: here's a list of places that are walking distance from our apartment. Number one, the convenience store. Number two, the pharmacy. Number three, the bus stop, and number four, that weird intersection with a statue of a horse that I’m not allowed to climb on. List of things that are _not_ walking distance from our apartment: _your stupid boyfriend’s stupid house._ ”

At this point, Takao was almost thankful for the chance to trade in his worrying for more bickering. “Don’t call Shin-chan stupid, stupid!” he said, making a silly face at his sister. She quickly retaliated in kind. “If he was really stupid, how could he have helped you with that science project one time, huh? Isn’t that the only assignment you’ve gotten above a 90% on all year?”

“Whatever, like your grades are any better.” Moriko huffed. “And a person can be smart and also be stupid, you know. Like yeah, Midorima-kun can do crazy calculus or whatever he was trying to show me back then. So what? He’s still gotta have a few screws loose somewhere if he’s going out with _you._ ”

Takao grabbed his chest and staggered a few dramatic steps. “How could you say something like that? My own baby sister,” he lamented. 

“I’m just telling it like it is.”

“But that’s _not_ how it is,” Takao said, continuing to pout. “I’ll have you know, I am an _excellent_ boyfriend. All… caring, and attentive, and stuff. Anybody would be lucky to go out with me.”

“Yeah, you’re a real catch,” Moriko repeated, voice dripping with sarcasm. “So, um, flashback bomb: do you remember that time when I got locked in the storage closet and you laughed at me for like hours and did nothing?”

“That was a hundred years ago! And don’t act like I just left you there to rot; I did help you out eventually.”

“Yeah, after you took a video of me crying and posted it all over the internet.”

“I already said I was sorry about that!” Takao said. “And anyway, I don’t see what that has to do with whether I’m a good boyfriend or not. It’s not like I’ve locked Shin-chan into any closets recently.”

Moriko frowned. “Wait, I thought I was the one who locked myself in there on accident. Don’t tell me-“

Takao sincerely regretted the chuckle that escaped his lips right then. Because of course Moriko heard it. And of course, as soon as she did, her gray eyes widened to twice their usual size.

That was the last thing he saw before his world became a maelstrom of skinny, flailing limbs and hyperactive middle-school rage. “ _Oh my god, Kazu, I am going to_ end _you!_ ”

His little sister chased him around the block for a while, tripping and lurching after him in her flimsy high heels. Takao evaded her with ease, his (admittedly a little bit ugly) man shoes giving him a distinct advantage in terms of speed and stability. But all the same, he made sure to never pull too far ahead of her. It would be no fun if she gave up on the chase altogether.

Eventually, though, he could see her starting to get tired. And so, after a few minutes’ hot pursuit, he pretended to get distracted and run into a lamppost.

She smiled in vicious glee as he bounced off the metal column. ”Get ready, onee-chan," she gasped out, pounding a fist aggressively into her other palm as she trotted the last few meters to overtake him. Her sparkly purple manicure ruined the effect somewhat, but Takao still pretended to be afraid. "Get ready for me to... to bring on the _pain_ …"

And with that, she lunged at her brother and tackled him soundly (or at least, as as soundly as she could while the both of them were doubled over with breathless laughter). Her body was too small to knock him down- as it was, it barely made him stumble- but those bony elbows and knees were really something to contend with. In an embarrassingly short amount of time, Takao found himself tapping his thigh loudly. "Okay, uncle, uncle!" 

With a grin of victory, Moriko withdrew. "Lol, you just got beaten by a girl. Aren't you supposed to be a big-shot athlete or something? I’m _so_ telling Midorima-kun.”

"Don't you dare! He’ll make fun of me so hard.”

"You should have thought about that before you locked your precious little sister in a closet." 

"I won't do it again! I promise!"

"Your promises mean nothing anymore, stupid! Because, in spite of what you promised me not one hour ago, _this is still totally not walking distance!_ "

By that point, their mother had been able to catch up with them, trotting somewhat more gracefully than Moriko had in her own, much flatter dress shoes. "Kazunari! Moriko! Watch your volume! This is a nice neighborhood." 

Takao looked around, was surprised to note that, wow, she was right. Somewhere during the past few minutes the apartments and small shops that characterized the Takaos’ neck of the woods had faded into rows of neat, well-maintained single family homes. They were just a few blocks away from Midorima’s, then. 

“Sorry mom.”

She shook her head. "You in particular should know better, Kazunari. You're almost an adult now. Why, then, does it feel like I'm back in time walking you to kindergarten, rather than to meet your boyfriend that you do very _adult_ things with without even locking the door first?"

He groaned. Leave it to his mom to describe a delicate situation in the bluntest possible way. "Ugh, can't we as a family just get past that already? That happened months ago. And it wasn't even that bad to begin with. We were just kinda... kissing with enthusiasm."

"No matter what you call it, that still doesn't mean that it was acceptable. Especially in front of your little sister.”

“Yeah, what mom said. Totally unacceptable,” Moriko added, shaking her head in disapproval. “Now that you mention it, I think I might even be _traumatized_. If only there were something to heal the damage that has been done to my innocent brain, like maybe a certain someone's autograph or... like pulling some strings to get me a date with them, or-"

“Moriko, honey, what’s that on your foot?"

Silence fell for a moment as the three of them looked down at the youngest family member’s left lower extremity. Sure enough, a trail of blood was oozing off of her heel, winding its way down the back of her sparkly pumps.

Guilt twinged in Takao’s chest as he watched the color drain out of his sister’s face. ”Wow, I guess you weren't kidding about that blister,” he said. "Looks like it popped."

With a high pitched whine, Moriko leaned against his shoulder. "Ew, I hate blood," she said. As their mother rummaged around in her purse to find a tissue to wipe off the wound with, Moriko looked up at Takao, a pitiful expression worthy of a three-legged baby chihuahua looking for a forever home plastered across her face. "Carry me, onee-chan?" 

He sighed. “Yeah, sure.” 

And without any further resistance, Takao dropped down to one knee, allowing Moriko to clamber up onto his back. He may have been a self-professed terrible big brother, but still, when Moriko asked him for things, it was sometimes hard to say no.

 

.

 

Three more minutes of walking, and the ragged crew of Takaos finally arrived at Midorima's house. Although at that point it was clear that both his mother and little sister were anxious to get inside and put the harrowing events of their commute behind them, Takao couldn't help but pull them in for one last huddle by the curb before they approached the house and their fate.

"So Moriko- as soon as we open the door, what are you going to do?"

"Greet them with a smile and try not to be cuter than Midorima's little sister?" Moriko guessed, voice muffled. She was small enough that her face was half-pressed into Takao's shirt from her piggy-back position. He hoped that there wasn't going to be a makeup stain there later, but knowing Moriko, the chances of that were slim.

"Well yeah, I guess that's not technically wrong," he conceded. "But what else? What did we practice?"

"Oh, right. I need to compliment something about their house."

"Exactly." Takao said, nodding sagely. "And what do you need to _not_ do?"

"Um, make fun of you and Midorima-kun for being double-rainbow level gay for each other?"

He rolled his eyes and pretended to drop her. As Moriko shrieked and clung harder to his shoulders, their mother cut in. "So if you two are done being silly, can we go get this over with? There are so many windows at the front of their house; the Midorimas are probably watching us and wondering what the heck we're doing, hanging out in the middle of the street like this."

"Nobody's watching us from the _windows_ , Mom. I promise," Takao said. "You don't need to be so nervous. I thought you liked Shin-chan?"

"Oh, I like Midorima-kun just fine," his mother said, not entirely convincingly. "But still, this dinner..."

She let the sentence dangle, but it was okay. Takao already understood.

He touched at her elbow. "I know, it’s awkward for me too," he said. "Just a few hours and then we can go home.”

"Just a few hours..." she repeated grimly. 

They approached the front door and rung the bell. The door was answered promptly enough to substantiate all of his mother's craziest fears about the Midorimas standing by the windows and monitoring their progress. When he snuck a look at his mother, her nervous expression made it clear that she realized this too.

The door opened to reveal the two younger Midorimas, wooden smiles on their faces and outfits that matched so smartly that it had to have been coordinated ahead of time. The two of them gave the Takaos a quick welcome and ushered them into the entryway. "Our parents are in the dining room; dinner should be ready in just a few minutes. In the meantime, would you like a drink or-"

"Wow, your whole house looks like it's out of a catalog or something!" Moriko's bright voice interrupted. 

If Takao had had a hand free right then, he may have considered facepalming. Why on earth would she think _Shin-chan_ was the one she should pay the compliment to? 

"Like, look at that rug, it's so pretty and beige and-"

And right on cue, a bead of blood dripped from Moriko's heel onto the very rug that she was attempting to wax poetic about. 

For a moment Takao hoped that nobody other than him had seen this, was already coming up with plans to usher everyone into the dining room ASAP and then sneak back to scrub the stain away later. But apparently it wasn't a lucky day for Scorpios, because of course, when he looked up, every last one of them was staring at the spot with reactions ranging from surprise to quiet horror. 

Takao let out a sigh. So much for that plan.

“Ahaha, sorry about that," he said, cursing the way his voice cracked as he tried to break the uncomfortable silence. "Moriko's shoes have been giving her trouble. Any chance we can borrow your first aid kit for a sec, Shin-chan?"

With a quick gesture, Midorima sent Chiyako off scurrying upstairs, and Takao set Moriko down on a bench by the door. The four of them fidgeted in silence for a few seconds. Takao tried to meet Midorima's eyes, but he was met with a look of such hopeless foreboding that he had to look away. 

In the end, it was Takao's mother who spoke first. "So. Midorima-kun. You said something about drinks? What've you got on tap, haha?”

“Well, we’ve brought up a selection of wines from the cellar that might interest you…”

Takao had two free hands at his side and a bloody rug under his feet, and this time around, he was not able to fight off the face-palming urge. _Just a few more hours_ , he told himself, as Midorima rattled off the names of half a dozen fancy-sounding vintages that Takao knew as a fact that his mother would not be able to pronounce when repeating her choice back to him. _Just a few more..._

 

.

 

Chiyako returned in a flash with what Takao recognized to be the same extensive first aid kit that Midorima had used to evaluate him after his concussion last spring. Once that was in his hands, it was the work of a moment to clean up Moriko's heel and slap a bandage on it. He congratulated himself on his efficiency and big-brothering skills.

But that efficiency was a double-edged sword. For as soon as Moriko was patched up, the three of them found themselves whisked away into the far reaches of the Midorima mansion, towards dinner and the specter of Midorima’s parents. 

When they finally arrived at the dining room (which, though still on the ground floor, was far enough away from the front door that Takao had no idea how they had gotten there or how to get back), a massive spread of food was on the table, and Midorima's mother and father stood waiting. 

Takao had only met Midorima’s parents a handful of times. Both of them had busy work schedules, and it wasn't as if he spent a lot of time hanging out in Midorima's creepy-big house anyway. From the very first moment he’d met them, however, Takao had felt intimidated, and that first impression had been no way improved by the scene before him now.

Part of it was just the way they were standing. For one thing, they were both remarkably _tall_. That shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, seeing as they had a son approaching 200 centimeters, or to Takao in particular, who as a basketball player made it his business to surround himself with near-giants, but still. Takao was used to people looking down at him with friendship in their eyes, or recognition of his basketball skills, or, in Shin-chan's case, that subtle softness that Takao liked to imagine was love. For that reason, it threw him off balance when the eyes that looked down at him settled for only a moment before drifting away to the next person, hardly more interested in him than they would have been in a stranger on the street.

On top of all that, a glance at their outfits for the evening- a suit and tie on the one hand and a nearly ballgown-tier dress on the other- revealed that it wasn't only Shin-chan and Chiyako who had opted to color-coordinate their outfits, but rather _all four of them,_ and was Takao crazy to think that was kinda weird?

The elder Midorimas welcomed them again, their enthusiasm somewhat more convincing than their son's had been but, to Takao's eyes, obviously still an act.

“You must be Takao-san! It’s so nice to meet you at last; our son has told us so much about you. We've saved you a seat on this side of the table, please sit," Midorima's mother said, gesturing that Takao's mother should take the seat across from her. Midorima's father would sit at the head of the table. "Did Shintarou already offer you a drink? I’ll go fetch the bottle…”

The rest of them shuffled over to the table. Takao and Moriko sat in a row next to their mother, with Shin-chan and Chiyako facing them. 

"Can I also get something to drink?" Takao murmured to Midorima as they sat down. His boyfriend shot him an irritated look. 

"Don't you think that would exacerbate the problem?" he hissed back. 

"Calm down, I’m joking." Takao touched at Midorima's foot with his own under the table. He had intended it to be a comforting sort of gesture (whether for Midorima or himself, he wasn't sure), but Midorima winced.

“ _Takao._ “

Takao drew away. "Sorry, Shin-chan," he mumbled, diverting his eyes toward the intimidating rows of silverware that flanked his plate.

Midorima's mother returned with a bottle of red wine, not one of the bargain 1.5-liter ones that his mother kept the back corner of their pantry well supplied with, but rather one of those classy svelte types with a label printed in what looked like French. "Please, don't wait on my account. Bon appetit!" 

The group of them tucked in. The menu for that evening was extensive, with multiple meat dishes, a full rainbow of vegetable ones, and a steaming pot of soup. Takao, as the kind of person who imagined an upscale feast to be a double serving of Cupanoodle or the simple victory of a one-pot meal, found it frankly overwhelming. 

He might even have preferred the instant noodles to anything on the table right then, if only for the fact that he could positively identify what they were. But since it wasn't as if he could up and _ask_ the Midorimas what it was that he was putting in his mouth, he decided to go with the route of complimenting the food and hoping that Midorima's mom would organically go on to explain how she’d made it. That was the strategy that he’d learned to use when Moriko had started cooking, at least. Though, the problem with Moriko’s dishes had less to do with being exotic and more to do with being burnt and inedible. 

It couldn’t hurt to give it a try, if only to get the conversation rolling.

“Wow, this meat is really good,” Takao said, gesturing at one of the platters in front of him. This one tasted like beef, even if it looked kind of long and shredded like pork, and had been mixed with a greenish mystery vegetable. “My compliments to the chef, haha.”

Midorima’s mother smiled back. “Thank you. I’m sure our chef will be happy to know that you enjoyed it.”

And then she went back to eating. 

Takao guessed he could cross _that_ particular conversation starter off the list.

Uncertain what his next move should be, Takao ventured a look across the table at his boyfriend. Midorima was sipping small spoonfuls of soup at a steady, almost mechanical pace, eyes fixed on the off-white tablecloth in front of him. Takao contemplated nudging him with his foot again just to get his attention, but in the end he decided against it. There was a time and a place for pushing Midorima’s buttons, but right now wasn’t it. The outcome of this dinner meant a lot to his boyfriend- this was one of the times that Takao needed bite down on his urge to tease him and instead offer support in any way he could. Despite his own frustration.

Despite the soul crushing silence that continued to reign over the elegantly-adorned dining room table. Geez, it seemed like even the fresh-cut lilies in the center of the table were beginning to wilt under its weight.

Takao tried another conversation tactic. "So, Mom, weren't you telling me that there was some big tennis tournament going on this weekend?" he recited. Although he tried to make the question sound off-the-cuff, he could see Moriko's lips twitch at how scripted it seemed.

Luckily, he had made no promises not to kick _her_ under the table. And during the few moments that it took to put his little sister in her place, Takao almost dared to believe that his attempt to seed a conversation might actually lead to something. 

Midorima's father raised an eyebrow, a well-practiced charismatic gesture that had probably served him well in his career in business. "Do you mean the Australian Open qualifiers?"

Takao's mother nodded. She looked surprised that he knew what she was talking about. “Yes, that’s the one. I had off work today, so I've been watching the opening matches."

Midorima's father smiled back at her. "What a pleasant surprise, my wife and I have been following them closely as well. Our favorite for men's singles has a match tonight, as a matter of fact. Against one of his most bitter rivals. I believe they're playing as we speak." He looked down at his gold plated watch, frowned, turned to his wife. "What time was the Duplantier-Zagroff match again?

Takao's mom leaned forward in her chair, putting down her wine glass for what might have been the first time since Midorima's mother had filled it minutes before. "You guys are also fans of Julien Duplantier? Ha, what're the odds? I've been rooting for him since, wow, almost since Moriko over there was born. He must be pushing forty at this point, and he hasn't slowed down yet. Such an incredible athlete."

Takao’s mother got so caught up in this monologue that it took her a few seconds to recognize that the Midorimas' honest smiles had just defaulted back to their usual fake ones. "We're Zagroff fans, ourselves."

"Oh."

Takao's mom sat back in her seat, took another gulp of her wine. 

And Midorima sent Takao another look of such hopelessness that made his chest twist, made it hurt like someone was trying to wring all of the blood out of it. And if finding a way to make Midorima's parents and his mom get along was the only way to make that twisting stop, then that was what he had to do. Even if it seemed impossible at the moment.

However, none of his next few attempts at trying to force the adults onto a common ground worked any better than the first one did. They both liked tennis, but rooted for different players. They all had traveled a good deal (Midorima’s parents for business, Takao’s mother in her youth), but preferred different parts of the world. And when Takao finally ran out of ideas and Midorima took over, his more-polite but less-imaginative approach did little to cure this fundamental problem.

Simply put, although their parents, on paper, seemed to have a lot of interests in common, they nonetheless found themselves with absolutely nothing to talk about. Maybe this had to do with their personalities, their ages, their positions in life- Takao didn't know. All he knew what that there was some kind of disconnect there, and he sure as hell didn't know what he could do to fix it. 

Eventually, they settled on a very dull and lifeless discussion of some matter of local politics that neither party cared about enough to disagree over. This gave Takao and Midorima a few minutes to catch their breath and politely tune the conversation at the end of the table out. 

When Midorima looked over at Takao, it was with that same resigned expression from before, magnified some ten or a hundred times. Takao's first thought upon seeing a face like that was to drag Midorima upstairs and, behind closed doors (as always), kiss the sadness off of him. To hold him in his arms until the anxious stiffness melted away, until he stopped focusing so hard on things that didn't have to matter if he didn't want them to. 

He’d seen enough to know that the “dinner party” was a bust. They had tried the best they could, _prepared_ the best they could, and yet they had still failed. It had been an honest failure- there was no shame in it- but still, the meaning was clear. Maybe a friendship between their two families was just impossible, no matter how much Midorima (and by extension, Takao) wanted it. Maybe something as crazy as that just wasn’t destined to be.

This time, when Takao reached a foot across the table, brushing his toes against the side of Midorima's calf, he didn't meet any resistance. Takao smiled at the physical contact. It didn't make the situation any better, but it made him feel better. 

Now that he wasn't so focused on guiding the adult side of the table through what amounted to a series of uncomfortable "getting-to-know-you" exercises, Takao realized just how much the flow of conversation on the "kids" side of the table was struggling as well. 

While Takao and Midorima had been working to pry a decent conversation out of their parents, Moriko had been trying her hardest to do the same with Chiyako. As expected, though, even her best attempts at charm had done nothing to chip away at the wall of Chiyako’s blank-faced seriousness.

She'd started with the expected questions, things like how old Chiyako was, where she went to school, her hobbies- all of which Chiyako responded to in the same terse way that she had always spoken to Takao. This was followed by the observation that they both had "-ko" names, which totally made them like sisters or something, right? (Although Chiyako flatly denied this insinuation, explaining that her family had a genealogy book that went all the way back to the Kyoho era and she had never seen any Takaos in it before.) 

But even after all of the reasonable courses of inquiry had been shut down, Moriko refused to give up. And so what had started out as normal attempts at small-talk soon progressed to a series of increasingly desperate conversational gambits, such as trying to get the smaller girl to hum a duet with her and deliberating with herself at length as to what Chiyako's ideal nail polish color would be. 

Moriko talked and talked until she practically went blue in the face. But no matter what she said, no matter how crazy her little soliloquies got, Chiyako never had that much to say in return.

In a way, watching them reminded Takao of when he and Midorima had first met. Sure, they’d always had the basketball team in common, so Takao at never been entirely at a loss for what to say to him. But back at that time, he could never shake the feeling that he’d just been talking to himself whenever Midorima was around. Maybe that was why he had gotten into the habit of teasing him so much- at least that way he had been guaranteed a reaction, even if that reaction was no more than an unamused huff or a “shut up, Takao”. (Although, at this point in their relationship, that phrase had started to sound more like sweet nothings than any real attempt to chastise him.)

Things probably would have turned out different if Takao had actually been trying to make Midorima like him back then, Takao realized, with a kind of ironic amusement. If he’d been hanging out with him out of genuine friendliness rather than that bitter fascination he’d had with the other boy ever since they’d first played each other in middle school. Maybe if that had been the case, he might have hesitated before imposing himself on the taller boy like he did, might have given the space that he clearly had wanted, rather than shovinghis way into a friendship that Midorima had clearly had no interest in. 

Would he ever had had the chance to love Shin-chan, if he hadn’t hated him a little at first? 

He continued to muse on this question, so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he barely even noticed when the chatter from Moriko’s side of the table ceased. He probably wouldn’t have ever registered the silence, or the way that his sister was frowning down at the few little smears of leftover food and sauce on her plate, swirling them absently with her spoon, if Moriko hadn’t broken it a few seconds later.

"Hey. Chiyako-chan. Look at this.”

Carefully, Moriko rotated her plate 180 degrees and pushed it forward, towards where Chiyako sat across the table from her. The green-haired elementary schooler obediently looked over, first at Moriko's face and then the proffered plate. Her forehead wrinkled in a very Shin-chan way. 

"It's a cat,” Moriko explained. “Made of food.”

Chiyako blinked. "Ah. I see."

Takao couldn't see. Maybe because the plate was upside down, relative to his point of view. Or maybe because Moriko's design was too avant-garde and impressionistic for simple folk like him to appreciate.

"Like, you see the noodles there? That's his whiskers. And the meat is his fur." Moriko tapped at the edge of the portrait with her chopsticks. "He used to have feet, but then I ate them."

"Hmm."

A pause. "I guess I'll eat the rest of him now, too."

She drew the plate back to her side of the table, and Takao went back to absent-mindedly stroking Midorima's leg through his starchy khaki pants and coming up with something, anything, that could salvage the conversational disasters on either side of the table. He figured that that had been Moriko's last attempt to win Chiyako over. Certainly, the little girl's lukewarm response could have left her with no hope for a warmer reception next time. It was a surprise, then, when a few minutes later he saw Moriko swivel her plate around once more. 

“This time it’s Pikachu,” she explained. “He’s mostly made of this yellow pepper stuff, but he's got seaweed stripes." 

”That isn’t a pepper. It’s butternut squash."

“Stop making things up, Chiyako-chan. What the heck is a _butternut_ supposed to be?”

Chiyako didn't answer her. She just regarded the Pikachu in quiet contemplation. “It seems like a shame, to spend all that time making art and then eat it right away,” she said after a moment. 

The earnestness in her voice surprised a quick laugh out of Moriko. ”Nah, it's fun, I promise. And it's just doodles anyway.” Moriko inspected the little piles of leftovers on her plate. “Although, I've gotta admit, this little guy is pretty cute. I’ve got a lot more meat on my plate, too, maybe I should make him a friend. Like an Eevee or something? Some other brown Pokémon…”

Takao kept his eyes on Chiyako as Moriko rambled. The way that the younger girl had subtly adjusted the position of her glass and soup bowl to shield her plate from view hadn't escaped his attention. 

Moriko had finished rendering not only an Eevee but also another brownish rice-based blob that she swore up and down would look _just_ like a Zigzagoon "in the right light" before Chiyako finished her secret project. 

"I've made a doodle too," she announced softly. She turned her plate around and removed the cups that had been blocking it from view. "Can you tell what it is, Moriko-chan?"

Takao looked down at the design on the plate, those carefully-arranged swirls of cabbage and rice, wet down with careful applications of soup where necessary to fix the texture, and identified it right away.

Smiling, he snuck a glance over at Moriko, whose jaw had dropped just about to the floor. “What. But actually what. That’s not a _doodle_ , Chiyako-chan. That is a perfect replica of the Great Wave of Kanazawa."

Chiyako nodded. "I hoped that you would recognize it."

"It would be hard not to," Midorima cut in. For the first time that evening, his amusement seemed to overwhelm his underlying despair. Takao was torn between feeling happy for him and feeling jealous that it had been Chiyako, rather than him, to bring a smile to his boyfriend’s face. "It's practically photorealistic. I especially like your use of broth in coloring the sky. It gives it an atmospheric touch."

The corner of Chiyako’s lips twitched up under the praise, while Moriko ground her teeth. “Okay, well yeah _duh_ I would recognize it! I'm not stupid; I know stuff about art at least," she said. Pouting, she looked down at the battle monsters on her own plate, jabbed at them listlessly with her chopsticks a few times until they were nothing but a mushy heap. 

And then Takao swore he could see a lightbulb flash on top of her head. Leaning forward in her chair, Moriko threw an arm to block her plate from view and started to rearrange her food, chopsticks a blur as she mushed the leftovers into a new pattern. Takao didn't like the look of the manic grin that had taken over her face. 

"Oh, so you think you're hot stuff, huh, just because you can make priceless works of art out of food?" she asked. She was speaking even more loudly than normal. Takao guessed that artistic fervor could do that to a person. "Well, take a look at the most priceless art of all! I give you-"

Moriko spun her plate around so forcefully that it actually went spiraling a few centimeters towards Chiyako's side of the table. "The Mona Lisa!"

Takao looked down at the plate. And then looked again, and a third time. During none of those attempts could he make out anything even remotely like Renaissance-era Italian portraiture. 

Luckily, Moriko cut in to explain. "So the meat's her hair and dress, the vegetables are the background, the soup is the atmosphere or whatever Midorima-kun just said, and then this little bit of fish bone that I had to pull out from between my teeth earlier?" she said, pointing to the sliver of reddish white in the center of the portrait. She then rested her hand against her chest, a heart-felt gesture. " _That_ is her enigmatic, sensual smile."

Even after that helpful tutorial, Takao still couldn't make out a single one of the features Moriko had described. He was about halfway through figuring out how best to proceed in making fun of her when he heard a sound break the silence. 

Not just any sound, but a _snort_ of all things.

The snort was followed by another, and then by a sort of strangled wheeze, and then finally by a sound that Takao could positively identify as laughter. He looked over at Moriko, but it wasn't her. Shin-chan was an even less likely suspect, but Takao examined him as well. He wasn't laughing either. 

That only left one person.

Amazed, he looked up to see Chiyako, red-faced and trembling across the table from him, pressing both of her small hands against her mouth as if trying to keep the laughter from popping out. Her eyes were closed at first, but, as Takao continued to watch her, they opened for a moment, landed on Moriko's plate, and then snapped shut again, as her body spasmed even harder with a new wave of poorly-controlled hysterics. 

He gave Midorima's ankle a sharp kick, and met the resulting annoyed glare with a gesture towards his little sister. When Midorima caught sight of her, his eyes widened as well.

It was probably sad, in a way, that the sight of Chiyako giggling was enough to take even her own older brother aback. "Chiyako-chan, are you alright?" Midorima asked, a note of concern in his voice. "Are you... you're not choking, are you?"

Chiyako at least had the presence of mind to shake her head no to that question, although she kept her hands pressed tightly to her lips.

"Of course she's not choking," Moriko said. "She's laughing, right? Even though she probably gets straight A’s like her brother, I bet she's never got schooled so hard in her life. It must have broken her brain or something."

And at that, Chiyako finally lost it. She stopped even trying to hold back her laughter and let it burst out to fill the dining room, all breathy and desperate and pained-sounding.

"The Mona Lisa," she kept repeating. "The _Mona Lisa_."

Midorima hesitated a moment, clearly uncertain what course he should take to remedy his malfunctioning baby sister. In the end he put a hand on her back, patting it stiffly. "Ah, yes, Chiyako-chan. It's... it's a crude version, admittedly, but you're right, it is the Mona Lisa..."

Which of course only made the situation worse. 

By the time that tears had started to form in Chiyako's eyes from her exertions (and possibly in Midorima's as well, from how frankly unprepared he was to deal with a giggling little girl), the adults had finally taken notice of their ruckus. 

"Chiyako! What on earth are you making such a fuss over?"

As the younger girl remained bent over with laughter and therefore in no position to explain the situation, Midorima was forced to step in. "It's... it's just some silliness; not even worth explaining. In any case, she and Moriko-chan are getting along well-"

"Oh god, it's food pictures again, isn't it?" Takao's mother, at this point slightly pink-cheeked and most of the way through a second glass of wine, brought her hands up to massage her temples. "Moriko-chan, isn't this one of those things that Kazu and I told you not to do? Like, on the list of things we said not to do, wasn't minding your table manners way up near the top?"

“Yeah, but I mean, you didn't mention food pictures specifically _.._."

"We shouldn't have needed to!"

As the two of them quarreled, Midorima's mother leaned forward to get a better look at the chaos on the other end of the table. 

"Hm. I suppose I don't know much about food pictures, but at least this activity seems not to be too messy," she assessed. A little smile crept onto her face. Takao couldn't have explained why, but it made a shiver run down his spine. "It's a big step up from food _basketball_ at least. Isn't that right, Shintarou?"

If Midorima hadn't quite been as stiff as a statue before, he certainly was now. "I don't know what you're talking about,” he said, in a voice that was equally rigid.

"You don't remember? That's a shame. I'd have thought that you would, considering how many times I made you clean the entire kitchen after catching you in the act.”

She then launched into an explanation of how, when Midorima was younger and tasked with helping to take care of his then-infant sister, he had made up a ridiculous sort of game for the two of them to play. This game had, apparently, involved cutting Chiyako's food into bite-sized, more-or-less spherical pieces and then launching them at the tray of her high chair from different points around the dining room. 

Upon first hearing this explanation, Takao didn't see what the problem had been- this was Midorima, after all, and so wasn't it natural that he would try to spice up boring chores by turning them into shooting practice? However, the source of his mother’s ire became more clear when she divulged what Midorima's shooting percentage had been at that point in his life. 

"At least three quarters of the food ended up on the floor before it even got to Chiyako's tray," she said, shaking her head at the memory. " _Three quarters_ of the food, if not more. It was such a waste."

Midorima had been cringing from the moment his mother had opened her mouth, his face contorted as if he were sucking on a lemon. "Remember that I must have been less than ten years old at that time. You can't expect a child to fully understand the value of food at that age."

Chiyako, who had mostly recovered at that point, cocked her head. "I'm eight years old, and I already know how to respect the value of food."

Moriko rolled her eyes. " _Mona Lisa_."

Chiyako fell back into paroxysms of laughter, and suddenly, her argument didn’t hold weight anymore.

"But wait, Shin-chan, now I'm confused. Is your mom really trying to say that you were able to be Teiko's first-string shooting guard with a shooting percentage of 25?”

“With food, not basketballs. And I’ll repeat this again: _I was ten years old_."

"You're lucky you have that as an excuse, at least, Shintarou-kun,” Takao's mom cut in, a mischievous look on her face. "You all wouldn't believe all of the stupid crap that Kazunari gets up to, even as a sixteen year old..."

She then proceeded to explain in excruciating detail a few of Takao's most recent poorly-thought out adventures. The stray cat incident, the time he tried to help Moriko study for a test but got all of the answers wrong, that weekend of insanity when he’d decided to pick up skateboarding…

It seemed like his mother kept talking for eons. The wine had loosened up her tongue and beaten down her nervousness somewhat, enabling her to tell the stories with her usual flair for comic delivery. Before Takao could come up with a way to defend himself, his mother had whipped up gales of laughter from all around the table, and especially from Midorima's parents. 

“And then Kazunari says that ‘oh, I was just trying to practice my vertical jump.’- and I’m not exaggerating with the voice, by the way; he said it _exactly_ like that _…_ ”

Takao sunk down in his seat, wanting to die. 

Eventually Takao's mother ran out of material, and Midorima's took the stage, working together with his dad to explain some of Midorima and Chiyako's recent less-than-proud moments. From then on, it became almost like a competition, with both sets of parents trying to figure out which of their children was the most ridiculous and lacking in common sense. 

“Oh my god, why _,_ ” he heard Moriko whimper next to him, just loud enough for Takao to hear it, as their mother put the finishing touches on her account of that one time Moriko had dropped her keys down a gutter and tried to fish them out with her mom’s necklace, only to lose the necklace as well. “Ugh, why is this happening, this is _not_ what I signed up for…”

Takao didn’t get it either. He didn’t understand it at all, why parents had to be so embarrassing, or what they were hoping to accomplish by sharing these chronicles of failure. Yeah, he liked teasing people as much as the next person, but wasn’t something like this going too far? Just five minutes ago, their parents couldn’t even find it in them to have a normal conversation about normal topics. Was making fun of and humiliating their own children really the only way that they could communicate with each other?

He chanced a look over at Midorima, expecting to see an expression matching what Takao was sure his own must look like. But no. He was surprised to see that Midorima had traded his horrified look from earlier for a sort of _intrigued_ one, which grew more pronounced the longer that he watched their parents’ antics. It was kind of like the look he got on his face when working on a particularly hard math problem, one that he could solve about 90% of the way but not quite figure out the final answer for. 

Takao didn’t know what that meant, other than that if he ever wanted to put a stopper on this geyser of humiliation, he shouldn’t wait around for his boyfriendto help him. 

Determined to change the subject, he let out a loud cough. “Okay, mom, you win, you have the worst children ever. Can’t we move on to something else now?”

Midorima’s dad chuckled. “I think that we’re embarrassing them.” 

“Of course we’re embarrassing them. Isn’t that the point?” 

“Mom!”

Takao’s mom laughed at his discomfort. “We’re just having fun, Kazu. You need to learn not to take yourself so seriously.”

Midorima’s mother nodded in agreement. “Yes, listen to your mother.” She looked over at the other woman. “Are you ready for desert, Takao-san? Tonight we have pineapple slices with frozen yogurt- we can eat it here or, if you want, we can move to the TV room and eat while we watch the match…”

The group dispersed after that. Their parents retreated to a TV room somewhere in the hidden bowels of the Midorima mansion, arguing passionately about which of their favorites was going to emerge the victor that evening as they went. Moriko and Chiyako worked together on another plate of food art, this time an original composition involving a peaceful mountain landscape (Chiyako’s contribution) covered in a herd of deformed, crazy-eyed zebras (courtesy of Moriko). Midorima only let this silliness continue for a few minutes, however, before he nagged them into helping him clear the dishes into the kitchen and wiping the table down.

After that, they wandered over to the living room, where Chiyako, having noticed that Moriko was limping on her wounded foot, decided than an intensive physical therapy session was in order. Moriko, who, in spite of herself, seemed to have started getting drawn in by Chiyako’s carefully-hidden cuteness, complied. 

Midorima and Takao sat on the living room couch, sharing a plate of pineapple slices and chatting about the practice game earlier that day. Every now and again, Chiyako would call for a “tech” and look over at her big brother beseechingly, and Midorima would need to take a break to assist her with whatever kind of exercise she was making Moriko do at the moment. Takao helped out by heckling them from the sidelines. 

Eventually, their parents emerged from the basement- Midorima’s with grim looks on their faces, Takao’s with a satisfied smile. The three of them continued to argue for a little while longer, in a way that sounded hostile from an outsider’s point of view but which ultimately resulted in an open invitation for Takao’s mother to come and watch matches with them in the future (once again, Takao inwardly lamented over how he couldn’t understand adults). After graciously accepting the offer and stating that she was looking forward to watching Zagroff get his ass kicked many more times with them, his mother finally informed her children that it was getting late, and it was time to go.

Takao stood up from the couch and was just about ready to follow his family back to the door when Midorima spoke up. 

“Wait, Takao. I have the textbook that you wanted to borrow. Come upstairs and I’ll get it for you.”

There was no textbook, obviously. But since it wasn’t like Takao minded spending a few minutes alone with his boyfriend, he played along. “Oh, right. One sec, mom,” he said. 

He followed Midorima down the endless hall, up the stairs, down another set of hallways. With each step, he felt the energy that he’d been forcing himself to exude all night recede. The dinner hadn’t even lasted two hours, all things considered, but _man_ was Takao tired. 

For that reason, as soon as they reached Midorima’s room, Takao flopped face-first onto the bed. He wasn’t able to jump far enough to reach the pillows, or to prevent his calves from dangling freely off the edge, but Takao guessed that would have to be good enough.

“Ah, what a day,” he lamented as soon as Midorima closed the door behind them. “Sorry about… you know, my mom, and Moriko, and, well, I guess everything?” He chuckled into the plain green comforter. “I knew that this was going to be a disaster.” 

His boyfriend hummed. “It wasn’t so bad.”

He heard a quiet plodding of footsteps as Midorima crossed the room. The edge of the mattress sank as his boyfriend sat down next to him. “I had expected it to be a disaster, of course,” Midorima continued, in a voice so perfectly even and balanced that it made Takao nervous, almost. “It seemed inevitable that something, or probably many things, were going to go wrong, and so I prepared for that. For example, you may have noticed that, when Moriko arrived with her injury, Chiyako was able to retrieve the first aid kit in a matter of seconds. That was because I had gotten it ready in advance, had restocked it and placed it right at the top of the stairs.” He let out a joyless little chuckle. “I had many such plans at the ready. I didn’t know exactly what would go wrong, so I planned for all of the scenarios I could imagine.”

Takao snorted. “Guess you didn’t imagine a scenario where our parents teamed up and spent the entire time bullying us, though.”

“That’s true,” Midorima admitted. “I neglected to consider the possibility that tonight might actually go well.”

Confused, Takao pushed his upper body off of the mattress, flipped over onto his back so that he could get a better look at Midorima. His boyfriend was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but had hiked up one of his knees so that he could turn partway towards where Takao was laying. 

This change in position meant that Takao could see his face clearly. And he was a little alarmed by what he saw there. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but the sheer emotion in those green eyes, that mix of desperation and confusion and something that might have been _tenderness,_ had not been it.

For once, he wasn’t sure what to say. But that seemed to suit Midorima fine. He continued, his words coming faster and more choppily by the moment. 

“Normally when I’m worried that something bad is going to happen… the bad thing actually happens. And so I plan for negative outcomes. I plan how to control the damage. Since I really wanted tonight to go well, I made even more plans than usual. But other than the first aid kit, in the end I didn’t need to use a single one. Not even one. Everything really… _you_ really…”

Midorima’s words seemed to run dry at that point, although he kept looking at Takao like he was the only person left on earth. It made the air feel thin and shaky in Takao’s lungs. He wasn’t sure if there was enough of it to form words with.But he still felt like he had to say something. 

“I mean… it wasn’t like I did anything,” he began, in a voice that was trying to sound nonchalant but didn’t quite hit the mark. “Haha, I guess in the end it was all Moriko. I knew I kept her around for a reason…”

He trailed off when he felt a touch at his side. His boyfriend had leaned over towards him- just a few centimeters, but enough to make Takao’s skin prickle with the nearness all the same- and had begun to slowly, cautiously drag his fingers up the far side of his body. Takao followed their progress with his eyes, enjoying the contact, but at the same time wondering where Midorima was going with this. 

“Maybe,” his boyfriend finally replied, voice soft. “But you were the one there with me. And I’m grateful for that.”

As he spoke, Midorima’s hand continued to inch up Takao’s body, running lightly over his waist, his abdomen, the lower margin of his ribs, kneading him gently as he went. But before it could go any higher, Takao caught his boyfriend’s fingers with his own. Making sure that Midorima’s eyes were on his, he pulled the captured hand up to his lips and gave it a slow, lingering kiss. 

Midorima’s body twitched, and for a second Takao feared that he was going to pull away. But no- he was just repositioning himself on the mattress so he could lean in even closer. Takao smiled in relief and kissed his hand again, more firmly this time. 

“Even if things hadn’t gone so well, I still would have been there with you,” Takao murmured against his skin, loving the way that Midorima’s eyes widened just a touch, the way they always did when he said sappy things. “We would have gotten through it together. You know that, right?”

Midorima swallowed. “I… I think I’m starting to believe it, yes.” 

Takao’s heart couldn’t take the cuteness anymore. Without any warning, he brought his other arm up to Midorima’s collar and pulled him the rest of the way down. Midorima let out a startled noise, hurrying to catch himself on his forearm so as not to crush Takao, but other than that he made no move to get away.

Their lips met at last, in a kiss so sweet that Takao thought he was going to die from it- or at least, that he would die if it ever had to end. He could feel his boyfriend’s lips moving against his own, slow but certain, and Takao couldn’t help but sigh in contentment. It had been a while since he and Midorima had gotten any time alone, and he had missed the feeling of closeness. 

The position was a little bit awkward, with Takao’s legs still half-dangling off the bed and Midorima twisted around in a sitting position. But that was just about the last thing on either of their minds right then. The slide of their lips against each other's, the warmth of Midorima's hands continuing to run up and down Takao's sides, the way that, for once, his boyfriend was melting unhesitatingly into Takao when he tried to pull him close... right then, Takao couldn't think of anything in world more interesting than those things. He would have been happy to stay in that exact same position forever. 

It seemed like Midorima's body language was saying the same. For that reason, it surprised Takao when his boyfriend suddenly pulled away. 

"Kazunari," he said, his voice soft, halting. "There's something that I need to discuss with you."

The warm thrill that had just been rushing through Takao's body cooled. No matter what way you looked at it, nothing good could come from a statement like that. But Takao figured that there was no point in overreacting. At least, not until he knew what he was overreacting _to._ "Sure. Is everything okay?"

"It's... it's not like anything's wrong," Midorima said. He said that, but he shifted his weight off of Takao and back into a sitting position. Takao, feeling suddenly vulnerable lying sprawled out on Midorima's bed, sat up as well. "I just wanted to ask you..." He paused. "Well, I've been thinking, and..."

Takao watched, getting more and more concerned by the minute. For all that trying to get Midorima red-faced and flustered was one of his favorite leisure activities, he didn't like seeing his boyfriend work himself into a state like that on his own. 

He rested a hand on Midorima's knee- lightly, ready to pull away at the first sign of discomfort on his boyfriend's face. The way Midorima grasped it immediately and squeezed was probably a good sign, right?

“I think that-“

But as soon as Midorima began to speak again, he was cut off by a voice from downstairs. "Kazunari! Come on, it's time to go!"

Takao winced and looked over at the door. "Just a minute," he yelled. 

"Not in a minute- _now_."

Midorima sighed and let go of Takao's hand. “Never mind, it's not important. Let's go back downstairs."

“No, what were you going to say? Mom can wait for you to be done,” Takao said. “It's what she deserves, for pulling that stunt on us during dinner."

"I would say that her 'stunt' worked out favorably for us. I'm very grateful to her, in reality." Midorima rose to his feet and headed over to the bookshelf. He rummaged through the shelves and eventually emerged with a slim physics text. "Here, take this. This book is relevant to what we're studying now. It should avert suspicion."

"But Shin-chan, it seemed like you really-"

"I said it's not important."

And that was that, Takao supposed. Now he would have to wait until the next blue moon before Midorima would want to talk about his feelings again, and who knew when that time would come?

Without further argument, Takao accepted the book and made his way back downstairs, where his family was waiting for him. Moriko had a mischievous glint in her eye, like she couldn't wait to get back on the road and tease her brother about what he might have been up to in Midorima’s room. His mom just looked impatient. "Oh, look who decided to make an appearance," was all she said, before bidding her last goodbyes to the elder Midorimas and heading out the door. 

"See you at school, Shin-chan," Takao said with a wave as he followed suit. "And thanks for the book!"

He didn't get a chance to see if Midorima had any reaction to that last bit of teasing. Because, pretty much as soon as the front door clicked shut behind them, Moriko was clamoring for a piggyback ride again. 

"It's either you carry me home, or I go back to the Midorimas' house and explain that you definitely weren’t spending all that time just now finding a stupid _book-_ “

Takao didn’t feel like fighting her, so he let her climb onto his back. From that new vantage point, she continued to run her mouth about the night, and Chiyako, and how she couldn’t decide whether the younger girl was more cute or more weird (“I think when I first met her it was like a 75:25 weird-to-cute ratio, but by the end of the night it flipped to 40:60? Does that even make sense?”). 

Takao tried to listen, but couldn’t get Midorima’s last few words out of his head. What had his boyfriend been trying to say to him? And how was it possible that Midorima had been worrying so much about something without Takao even being aware of it? Yeah, Midorima wasn’t the most open guy around, but usually he could at least tell when something was on his mind…

 

.

 

By the time they made it back to their apartment, Takao was even more tired than he’d been before. He said good night to his family and got ready for bed in record time, relishing the feeling of not having to set an alarm clock for the following morning. But right before he turned off the light and surrendered himself to his somnolence, his cell phone beeped. He’d gotten a text.

The urge to just ignore it and go to sleep was tempting. Normally the only person who texted him this late at night anyway was his mom, who would wake up with random bursts of fear that she’d left the oven on or forgotten to lock the door or something but without enough motivation to get out of bed herself to check on them. However, since there was a small chance that it was Midorima, Takao found himself reaching for the phone. 

Surprisingly, the text _was_ from Midorima this time. Even more surprising was the message’s content. 

_“When the two of us start having sex, what do you think it will be like?”_

In the space of a second, Takao’s heartbeat went from 60 to just about 2,000. His grip on the phone got tight enough that the device was in danger of shattering into a million pieces and falling onto the floor. Which might have been okay, because it kind of felt like the floor had just given away beneath him anyhow. 

…prior to that night, he would have said that any of those physically impossible things were more likely than Midorima trying to talk about sex with him. 

He somehow managed to get in control of his emotions long enough to type a response, something short and poorly punctuated about what the hell was Midorima thinking and this wasn’t the kind of conversation you could have over the phone. Midorima followed up quickly with a query about when _would_ be an appropriate time to have it, because he really was curious about Takao’s views on the subject, and then somehow they ended up agreeing to meet up and talk tomorrow at that not-that-great outdoor basketball court that nobody else ever went to.

The whole exchange was handled quickly and efficiently. From start to finish it couldn’t have lasted more than fifteen minutes. 

But all the same, it was a long time before Takao managed to get to sleep that night. 


	7. Chapter 7

The two of them had planned to meet at the outdoor court at ten o' clock the following morning. The insanely curious (and fatally hopeful) part of Takao had tried to suggest an earlier time, knowing that his boyfriend always woke up at the crack of dawn anyway, but Midorima wouldn't hear of it. There was no need for Takao to be polite, Midorima said; he knew how much he valued sleeping in on his mornings off. It was a thoughtful point, if entirely misguided and off-the-mark, and so Takao had eventually let him win. He supposed he would just have that much more time to lay awake in bed and, instead of sleeping, stress out about all of the ways that the morning's conversation could go. 

For that reason, when he heard the doorbell ring at a little bit past seven, just an hour or two after Takao had managed to finally fall asleep the previous night, the thought didn't even cross his mind that it might be his boyfriend. So when he opened the door to reveal Midorima, a basketball wedged under his arm and his posture even more ramrod-straight than normal, he couldn't muster up any better reaction than to blink at him in sleepy confusion. 

"I know that this isn't the time we planned to meet," Midorima said. "But I figured that there was nothing to be gained by putting off the inevitable.”

Nervous as he was, Takao couldn't help but smile at that very Midorima-ish line of reasoning. Biting down the urge to point out that he might very well have _gained_ another few hours of precious sleep, he nodded his head. "I guess not. Just give me a few minutes to get ready, and then we can go."

Takao showed Midorima into their apartment- as always, it was hilarious to watch the green-haired giant struggle to fit himself into such a small space- and told him to make himself at home. There was some fruit and stuff in the kitchen if Midorima wanted to eat, he told him, and he knew where the TV was.

However, it seemed like Midorima's idea of "making himself at home" was following Takao back into his room, taking a seat at his desk, and ruffling through the pages of homework there that he'd been working on the day before.

Takao blinked, confused.

"Um, Shin-chan. You know I came in here to change, right?"

Midorima nodded carelessly, not looking up from the papers that he was perusing. "Don't let me stop you. I simply didn't like the idea of being alone in your living room if your sister decided to emerge." He frowned. "I haven't forgotten the last time I came here in the morning, where she tried to make me breakfast." 

“Oh come on, that was nice of her!" Takao said, taking a moment to remember the aforementioned incident. He supposed that letting toast burn was a mishap that could happen to anyone. Although, it remained unclear how Moriko had managed to do this with a toaster that had an automatic timer. 

He pulled some basketball clothes out of a drawer and tossed them onto the bed. "Well, don't look."

Of course Midorima’s first reaction to hearing that was to look directly over at Takao. ”Please, Kazunari. Since when have you been so modest?”

“Hey, it’s not like _I_ mind if you look. I was just giving you fair warning. Normally you freak out if I get even a little naked.”

“I suppose that’s true, but that was before I…” Midorima began, voice impatient. But before he could finish, he stopped, and let out a sigh. “Well, we’ll discuss it later.”

Takao sighed. “We could just talk about it now, though. Like, there’s no _rule_ that all of our heart-to-hearts have to take place on a basketball court, even though I guess it’s always worked out that way-“

Midorima just shook his head, once, sharp, definitive. “We’ll discuss it later.”

Takao shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He reached for the waistband of his sleeping pants, preparing to pull them down.

And as expected, Midorima kept his eyes fixed on Takao's desk. 

 

 

After Takao had finished changing and had grabbed a bite to eat, the two of them made their way towards the outdoor court. 

It was strange to travel on foot with Midorima, Takao decided, without the rickshaw separating them. Even though pedaling the rickshaw had long since ceased to be difficult for Takao (at least during their normal commute to school, which lacked any major changes in elevation), it did always come with its fair share of distractions. Every little bump and dip in the road, the shifts in traffic patterns around him, the stressful clanking of the two little bolts that precariously connected his bike to where his boyfriend sat… Sometimes he got so caught up in the concentration needed to operate the vehicle that he almost forgot that Midorima was there. 

Compared to that, traveling on foot was much more peaceful (not to mention easier on the legs). But it also came with its downsides. Because now that they were standing right next to each other, pushed almost shoulder-to-shoulder on the thin byway leading to the basketball court, Takao found himself way too aware not of the road, but of Midorima himself. And of how completely uncertain he was about what he was going to do next. 

Up until right then, Takao thought that he had a knack for reading Midorima. It had taken a while to dig through all of his strange quirks and mannerisms, and he was still learning new things about his boyfriend every day. But underneath all of this, Takao had always maintained that Midorima was quite a simple and straightforward person once you got to know him. Just take a quick look at that day’s Oha Asa and get a general idea of whether Shuutoku’s basketball team was on a winning streak or not, and you could pretty much predict Midorima’s mood for the day- how he would act, and _re_ act, and how much nonsense he would be able to put up with.

Today, Cancer was in seventh place, Scorpio was in fourth, and Shuutoku hadn’t lost a basketball game since that year’s Interhigh. But despite all of that,Takao had no idea at all what to expect from his boyfriend. Faced with the prospect of a conversation that might determine the future of their relationship, it was as if all of those years of study had been wiped away, and they were strangers again.

“Takao. We’re here. Start warming up.”

By the time Takao was able to pull himself back from whatever spaced-out dimension he had been inhabiting, Midorima had already laid his bag down by the base of the basketball hoop and made his way onto the court (which, as expected, was totally deserted). And then it was a few more seconds after that before Takao was able to process what Midorima was doing.

“Wait, we’re not actually playing basketball, are we?” he asked.

Midorima took a break from touching his toes to shoot Takao an exasperated look. “Why would we bother going all the way to a basketball court if not to play basketball?”

“I thought we were just trying to find someplace that we could be alone…”

Midorima went back to his stretches. “Since we’re here anyway, we should play for a while.” 

And that was that. They spent a few minutes stretching, and then shooting around, and then eventually transitioned to a game of one-on-one. Even with their usual rules in place that prevented it from being entirely one-sided and unfair (namely, that you had to dribble through the paint at least once before shooting because dang it, Shin-chan, it’s no _fun_ if you just camp out at the half-court line and make baskets all the time), the score soon rose all the way up to 34-27 in Midorima’s favor.

At that point Midorima stopped. “Thirty-four is my lucky number for the day,” he explained. He walked over to his bag, plucked out a water bottle, took a swig. “We’ll finish off here.”

“Aw, don’t be such a party pooper,” Takao said, laughing. “You’re just saying that because I’m on a hot streak right now.” 

Midorima rolled his eyes. “It’s not like we came here to play basketball anyway.”

Before Midorima had called the game off, Takao had been standing with the ball at the three point line, ready to start of another play. But now that it was clear that (by unilateral decision, as usual) the game was over, he went to meet his boyfriend over by the pole of the hoop. “So does that mean you’re ready to talk now?”

Midorima hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I believe… I believe that I’m prepared to do that.”

Takao smiled, took his hand. “Good.” 

The two of them settled down next to concrete half-wall that bordered off the court from the walkway, throwing their bags in a pile next to where they were sitting. Takao spread his legs out in front of him and twisted out his ankles, sighing at the mild stretch, biding his time.

He could see Midorima watching him out of the corner of his eye, his gaze intense but silent. Takao waited for a moment, wondering if Midorima would surprise him and actually be the one to initiate the conversation. But after what seemed like an hour or two of waiting, his curiosity eventually took over. 

“So. Shin-chan. About that text you sent last night…”

Midorima shifted beside him. “Yes. About that text.”

That didn’t seem like a complete thought to Takao, so he gave Midorima a few seconds to finish it. But once again, he did not. 

“You asked me what it would be like, if the two of us… you know. Had sex.”

As soon as the words were out of Takao’s mouth, he realized that Midorima had actually phrased this a bit differently, that he had asked about what it would be like _when_ they started having sex, not _if._ But even if Takao had misspoke, he supposed that was probably for the best. If there was any time that Takao needed to just get over himself and not be pushy, this was that time. 

“And do you have an answer to that question?”

Takao couldn’t help but laugh at the grave tone of his boyfriend’s voice. “Honestly, Shin-chan? I don’t even know what it’s supposed to _mean._ Like are you asking how our relationship will change, our day-to-day life? If that’s it, then I really wouldn’t worry about it. We’ve known each other for years now; I can’t see any reason why that would have to change at all.” He smiled, still riding out the last few chuckles from before. “Although I guess if you wanted to get more lovey-dovey with me once we do it, I wouldn’t complain.”

Midorima scowled. “Shut up, Takao. I’m plenty ‘lovey-dovey’, when you deserve it. And that’s not what I was asking.”

“What _were_ you asking, then?” 

“Just… you know. What it sounded like I was asking.”

“What it would be like after we had sex? I thought I already_”

“No, idiot,” he snapped, “what it would be like _when_ we have sex.”

Takao frowned. “ ‘When’ meaning-“

“Meaning _during.”_ Midorima turned away, eyes fixed on the scuffed surface of the blacktop. “Obviously. What else is ‘when’ supposed to mean?”

And suddenly- everything clicked. Midorima’s hesitation, his verbal imprecision, the little touch of color that was starting to rise to his cheeks and the tips of his ears. His boyfriend wasn’t just kicking around the idea of having sex with him. He wasn’t still deciding whether or not he wanted to do it.

No, he was trying to figure out exactly _how_ to do it. 

This realization opened a sort of floodgate in Takao’s head and, before he could even figure out what was happening or make a move to stop it, overwhelmed him with a deluge of dirty fantasies. Nothing crazy, just the usual culprits- vague thoughts of how good Midorima’s body would feel with no clothes on, how soft his skin would be, what his face would look like when he came. Usually he tried to push these thoughts back. But now that he knew that Midorima was thinking about him in the same way, was actually trying to _prepare_ for it, in his typically thorough and methodical way, things were different. Believing that his thoughts had a shot at turning into realities was more erotic than the kinkiest porno.

It was a few seconds before Takao could trust himself to speak again, and even once he did he wasn’t sure what he was saying. “Wow, Shin-chan. Are you asking me- I mean, Google is kinda your friend here, if you’re trying to figure out, how to do that-”

“The internet has taught me the basic mechanics of homosexual sex. But you’re the only one who can tell me what you want.”

And of course that ridiculously earnest response did nothing to muffle the way-too-loud fantasies that continued to battle for airtime in his head. Takao could feel himself blushing, his breath coming a little too hard, too fast. Was this even _real_? he wondered. Was he asleep or something? It should be illegal, for Midorima to say stuff like this…

Apparently Takao was taking too long to respond, so Midorima spoke again. “Honestly, Kazunari. You’ve made it clear from the very beginning of our relationship that you’re interested in being intimate with me. This isn’t the time to act _shy_ about it.”

That surprised a laugh out of Takao. “Shy? Shin-chan, when have I ever been shy about anything? It’s just kind of overwhelming- like, you dump all this on me at once, and then expect to just calmly discuss it as if we’re talking about the weather-“

“It wasn’t all at once. When I texted you last night, I was pretty clear about what I wanted to talk about,” Midorima began, a note of irritation in his voice. “And it’s not as if what I’m asking is difficult. I’m sure you’ve thought about having sex with me before. Just tell me what you imagined.”

“I mean, I’ve imagined a lot of things…”

Midorima let out an impatient grunt, and Takao laughed. “Hey, I’m just being honest! I have imagined, like… everything imaginable. It would be better to start off with what _you_ want, because I’m down for anything.”

"That's not an answer, Kazunari."

"Well, yeah. But it's the truth."

Midorima sighed and turned his eyes upwards, glaring at the gray December clouds as if they had caused him some personal offense. His boyfriend was frustrated with him. 

This was a state of affairs that Takao would ordinarily have found funny. Lord knew that he had tried to bring it on intentionally enough times, with all of the teasing and provoking that he did. But seeing him like that right then, when Midorima had gone through such pains to initiate a serious discussion, made Takao's chest hurt a little bit. 

He supposed it wouldn't hurt to share a few of his ideas with his boyfriend. Not all of them, of course- hell would have to freeze over before he would admit to _some_ of the things that he wanted to do to Midorima. But the less objectionable ones, the ones that were probably most along the lines of what Midorima himself wanted- those would be a good starting point.

"Well, we would probably take things slow, right?" Before Takao had started speaking, Midorima had still been looking up at the sky, at the court, at anywhere but the boy sitting next to him. But from the moment those words left his mouth, those green eyes had been looking at nothing but him. It was more than a little disconcerting. “It’s not like we have to do all the stuff that you looked up online right away. We could just… you know, touch each other with our hands, or something like that at first."

Midorima scrunched his eyebrows, gave him a look. "I fail to believe that, all this time, you've just been thinking of us touching each other with our hands."

"Hey, I never said that was the _only_ thing I've ever thought of!" Takao said with a laugh. "Just, since we're both sort of new to this, it might be better to start with what we know.”

Midorima's face grew even more sour. "In what way is that 'starting with what we know'? Are you suggesting that I freely dispense handjobs to people? Or that _you_ do? Do we need to have a discussion about fidelity?"

"Of course not! I just meant that, like, with yourself..." he let the words dangle for a moment. "Come on, Shin-chan, don't act like you've never masturbated before."

Midorima was still trying to look stern, but Takao could see traces of pink settling onto his ears. "My... masturbatory habits have nothing to do with this. I imagine the experience is entirely different when pleasuring another person."

The urge to follow up on what these "masturbatory habits" might be was strong, almost as strong as the surge of arousal that came from hearing Midorima admit to having them in the first place. However, Takao pushed all of that back down. There was plenty of time to figure that out later. 

Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders. "Well, yeah. If having sex with another person wasn't any different from masturbating, why would people want to do it?"

"I suppose that's a fair point," Midorima said, his voice thoughtful. 

Takao leaned in, a smile creeping onto his face. "But if you still think that just touching each other is too boring, that's fine. There's plenty of other stuff we can do. For example..." Takao was so close that he was nearly whispering in Midorima's ear now. That was probably for the best, because if anybody else heard what he was about to say, he might die of embarrassment. "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to put it in my mouth?"

Takao was all set to watch Midorima freak out, to jolt away from Takao or squirm or combust or something. So it took him aback when Midorima kept his gaze steady and responded right away.

"Your mouth, and other places.”

Now it was Takao’s turn to combust.

Takao wrapped his arms around his knees, curling into himself with a groan. It wasn’t right, Takao thought, as he felt his internal thermometer rise again, along with a certain other part of his anatomy which really ought to be staying put when he was in a public place and his boyfriend wasn't even touching him. Midorima had no business saying such sexy things with such a straight face.

"Shin-chan, are you trying to kill me?" Takao lamented.

"I thought we were being honest."

"Well, _yeah,_ but... you know if you say stuff like that, it'll just make me want you more." 

“So that is something you would be interested in.” Although Midorima's face was still about as red as a too-ripe tomato, he seemed a little more at ease than when they had first started talking. He even managed a small smile (or maybe that was just a trick of the light?) when he replied. “Well, feel free to want me as much as you'd like. I don't mind it."

Takao's head perked up. "Does that mean that we can have sex now?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, idiot."

With a groan, Takao returned to the fetal position. "It's hard not to, when you tease me like that," he whined.

"I believe that's what they call 'getting a taste of your own medicine'," he pointed out, entirely unsympathetic. "And I'm not teasing you. I may not be ready to have sex yet, in all senses of the word, but... I could do some things."

Takao looked over at him, still resting a cheek on his knee. "Some things?"

As soon as it began, Midorima's weird confident streak seemed to have ended, leaving him struggling to maintain eye contact with his boyfriend. Watching Midorima work through his nervousness to speak to him made something flutter in Takao's chest, something different from but not entirely unconnected to the arousal that continued to wrack the rest of his body. "Things like..." he paused for a moment, as if considering his words carefully. "Like what you were talking about before. Like touching."

Takao's dick twinged at the word, as strongly as if Midorima _had_ reached over and touched it, and Jesus Christ he was such a goner it wasn’t even funny. "You... are you serious? You really want that?" he managed to croak out. 

Midorima hesitated a moment, and then nodded. Then he looked at his watch. "It's past ten now, so mother and Chiyako should have left for tennis lessons. And father's at work. So."

It took a few moments for Takao to figure out why Midorima was talking about his family at a time like this. But then the meaningfinally sunk in, 

Takao gaped at him. "You mean... you want to do it right now?"

Midorima glanced away. "If you don't have other plans," he mumbled. 

Was it possible for a person to be so horny that they passed out? Because Takao felt like he was so horny that he might pass out. This meant that maybe he might have other plans that day, if an ER visit ended up being in order, but he supposed that was a risk he was going to have to take. Because there was no way that he could refuse his boyfriend when he looked so flushed, and eager, and really just alluring in every way...

Takao leaned over to Midorima and drew him into a kiss, quick but (he hoped) deep enough to convey all of the excitement he was feeling. "You're in luck; it looks like my schedule for this morning's wide open.”

Before Midorima could berate him for being cheesy or embarrassing or any other number of adjectives that Takao had to admit described him to a T, he hopped up to his feet and gave Midorima's elbow a quick pull. "Let's get out of here."

 

 

As promised, Midorima's house was entirely empty when they sped through the door fifteen minutes later, so they were able to kick off their shoes (Takao somehow managed to do this without breaking his pace at all) and head up to Midorima's room unimpeded. It seemed like it took forever to climb the steps and pass through the winding hallways of Midorima's really-way-too-big house, and the way that Takao kept pulling Midorima over for quick,sloppy kisses every few steps couldn’t have sped up the process any. But eventually they made it to the bedroom. 

Once they got there, Takao wasted no more time. After slamming the door with such a resounding crash that Midorima, even as distracted as he was, couldn't help but grumble about it, he hauled his boyfriend over to the bed and pushed him down. 

"Why are your clothes still on?" Takao complained, tugging at the hem of Midorima's shirt. The taller boy rolled his eyes and swatted his hands away. 

"Stop that, you'll stretch the fabric. I can do it myself."

"Then hurry up and do it!"

"So impatient," Midorima chided, shaking his head. But he did remove his shirt, so Takao counted it as a victory.

"Your pants too!" 

By the time Midorima had finished taking his clothes and glasses off, folding them into a neat pile, and placing them on top of his dresser, Takao was ready to go. He'd shucked off his own clothes (well, he'd followed Midorima's lead and left his boxers on, but it was still an improvement over the layers of sweats he'd been wearing before) and hopped onto the bed, throwing the blankets into disarray.

As soon as Midorima was within striking distance of the bed, Takao attacked. He grabbed his boyfriend and pulled him down, hard enough that he bounced a few times on the mattress and let out a (hilarious) garbled yell. Takao generously waited for him to still before going in for another kiss. 

To his relief, Midorima wasn't so ruffled from his fall that it stopped him from kissing him back, or from bringing his arms over to circle around Takao's middle. Takao let out a contented hum in response. 

Takao had often thought that he could kiss Midorima forever and never get bored. He loved the gentle pressure of soft lips against his own, the way those big hands he rubbed circles into Takao's back, how it was sometimes hard to tell which set of heartbeats he was feeling was his own. But he had other things on the agenda for that morning, and so with a pang of regret he pulled back a few centimeters, breaking the kiss with a quiet pop. 

"Any second thoughts?" Takao murmured, adoring the slightly confused post-kissing look on Midorima’s face as his green eyes blinked open.  

He felt Midorima shake his head, and Takao smiled. "Good."

The two of them had still been sitting upright before. With a gentle hand, Takao pushed Midorima back into the pillows and settled in beside him.

With a little adjustment, Takao brought their bodies flush together, chest to chest, hip to hip, one of his legs sneaking between Midorima’s to curl around a knee. Usually his boyfriend would push him away at that point, uncomfortable with Takao being anywhere in the immediate vicinity of his crotch. But today he stayed put, and held Takao tight.

For the hundredth time in the past hour, Takao felt his heart flip over in his chest, some kind of acquired situs inversus that, if he wasn’t careful, might lead to another ER trip that he didn’t have the time for. But really he couldn’t help it. He felt so close to Midorima just then. As if Midorima were an extension of himself, siphoning away every feeling other than warm, dreamy contentment. 

“Shin-chan,” he murmured. Midorima responded by leaning in to kiss him again, and raising a hand up to stroke Takao’s hair. 

Although Takao sighed at the attention- nothing in the world felt better than a kiss that Midorima had initiated, and he was willing to fight anyone that said otherwise- there was no mistaking the shakiness of Midorima’s fingers. Concerned, Takao cracked an eye open, and was greeted by an unwelcome but not entirely unexpected sight.

Midorima had his Rakuzan face on. 

Well, maybe it wasn’t exclusive to Rakuzan. Takao wasn’t sure why he even thought of it as that, to be honest; he supposed it was just because he’d first given it a name during last year’s Winter Cup, when Shuutoku had fallen to Rakuzan in the semifinals. But in any case, it was unmistakably a basketball face. And not just any basketball face, but the one he wore when he was focusing intently on an outcome that he didn’t feel certain of, when he was being pushed to the very edge of his limits and then right on past them. 

As Shuutoku’s point guard, Takao appreciated that Midorima was able to direct such serious focus to a basketball game. However, as Midorima’s boyfriend, he felt that it wasn’t a good sign that he was wearing such a grim expression in the bedroom. 

Wanting to gauge the situation before moving on, Takao pulled back a little bit. "You can relax, you know. It's just me," he said. He brought his hand up to his boyfriend's chest, lazily tracing downward from his collarbone. Midorima stiffened under his touch, pretty much the exact opposite of the effect he’d been hoping for.

Takao sighed. Yup, his boyfriend was definitely overthinking things. Again. And so, again, the task of getting him to focus on something else would have to fall to Takao.

Luckily, he was an old pro at this. Even if his methods were… well, a little bizarre.

Takao let out a quiet snort of laughter and pointed somewhere behind Midorima. "Hey, Shin-chan. Don't look now, but Kerosuke's totally checking you out."

Midorima frowned and threw a quick glance over to the plastic frog, which was siting as his usual place of honor on a bookshelf by the bed. When he looked back at Takao, his expression was not amused. But it also wasn't as serious as it was before, which was a step in the right direction. “What are you talking about. Nothing’s wrong with Kerosuke."

"Doesn't it look like he's staring at your butt though?" Takao persisted. “You’ve gotta admit, The placement's kind of unfortunate. Like, there's your butt, and then not half a meter away from it there's Kerosuke, undressing you with his big old froggy eyeballs..."

"Kazunari, that is ridiculous. _You_ are ridiculous. I'm not talking about this anymore." He pushed Takao's shoulders back against the bed, trying to resume where the two of them had left off. But since Takao could still see traces of that stressed-out look on Midorima’s face, he couldn’t give in yet. 

"Well, suit yourself," he said. Midorima tried to kiss him to shut him up. Skillfully, Takao dodged him. "I guess it’ll just be your lucky item's lucky day."

” _Kazunari I swear-_ “ Midorima began. But once it was clear that Takao couldn't even hear him over the sound of his own laughter, he let the rest of his sentence disintegrate into dark muttering. Without another word to Takao, he got out of bed, stalked over to the bookshelf, and turned the plastic frog around so it was facing the back of his bookshelf.

"Are you happy now?" he grumbled. "Is that _satisfactory_?"

Takao nodded, mostly done laughing but suspecting that he would start all over again if he opened his mouth to speak. Midorima seemed to appreciate his silence and joined him in the bed again. A little more forcefully than before, he pulled the smaller boy to his side.

"We've wasted enough time. Let's continue." 

When Takao looked up into Midorima's eyes, he was pleased to see that they were looking right back at him- and _really_ looking at him this time, rather than just being pointed in his direction while Midorima mentally rehearsed whatever sort of choreography he had prepared. 

Takao smiled. They were ready.

But that didn't mean that he could resist one more stupid comment before moving on. "Although, I guess Kerosuke can still hear us. Or, what have frogs got in the way of ears? Can they even-“

This time, when Midorima tried to silence him with his lips, Takao was more than happy to go along with it.

For a while, the two of them were content with kisses and touches, with just enjoying each other's bodies in a little greater detail than they had been able to before. Takao had already known that he loved looking at Midorima's legs, how the long muscles there clenched and flexed as he streaked his way across the basketball court. But he couldn't have even imagined how good they would feel under his hands, skin to skin, or how Midorima's breath would hitch when Takao dug his fingers into them, or how, when he started working his hands up his boyfriends thighs, that little noise would turn into an actual _moan_ -

Suddenly the earth shifted, and Takao found himself flat on his back, looking up into Midorima's intense green eyes. His boyfriend was hovering over him, pinning him down by both shoulders. "Let me do it," he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated over every square inch of Takao's skin. “Let me touch you.”

Takao hummed, his back arching a little against his boyfriend’s weight. HE could see Midorima’s eyes following the curve of his body as he moved. "Well, you won't hear me saying no to _that_ ," he murmured.

That was all the encouragement that Midorima needed. Letting go of Takao's shoulders, his hands trailed down his body, stopping to pull at the waistline of his boxers. Takao adjusted to help his boyfriend pull them off, and Midorima deposited them on top of the rest of Takao's clothes on the floor before rounding on his boyfriend again. 

Takao braced himself for an onslaught of heat. He was completely hard, completely _ready_ , had been so ever since their conversation at the basketball court. He assumed that Midorima felt the same way. At least, if the tent in his boyfriend’s boxers now and the hardness he’d felt pressed into him earlier had been any indication. But to Takao's confusion, after returning from the edge of the bed Midorima sat back on his heels, just looking down at him wordlessly. 

Takao had never been the kind of person to feel self-conscious about his body. But then again, he had never before been in the habit of laying exposed on other peoples’ beds, naked and achingly hard, so he supposed that in this situation a little self-consciousness might be excused. 

"Shin-chan," he started to say, hoping to galvanize his boyfriend to stop staring at him and get a move on already, but Midorima beat him to the punch. With a sudden surge of energy, he leaned forward, reaching out, not to touch his cock, as Takao had been ardently hoping for, but to gently cup Takao's neck as he kissed him.

After a few moments, he broke away. "You look good," he said simply.

"Thanks." Takao chucked. "I feel good, too." 

Midorima looked away for a moment after than remark, visibly coloring. But soon enough his eyes were back on Takao. 

And then suddenly, his hand was as well. 

A sharp breath ripped from Takao's chest. The contact was so abrupt, so _good_ that he couldn't stop himself from making a noise, or have the presence of mind to be embarrassed about it afterward. "Oh, Shin-chan..."

Slowly, his boyfriend started to pump him, hand faltering slightly from time to time as he experimented with the angle of his grasp, body shifting too as, after a few seconds, he settled himself down by Takao's side. 

This change of position had probably been intended to give Midorima's supporting arm a break, but it also opened up Takao’s line of vision- whereas before he had only been able to feel Midorima’s hand against him, now he could see it also. He watched, almost mesmerized, as those long fingers curled and shifted around his shaft, slowly pulling the foreskin down to expose the head, just as slowly bringing it back up, squeezing lightly as he went. 

“You’re using your right hand.” This remark was probably unnecessary, but Takao was too dazed to think that much about what he was saying.

Midorima hummed in confirmation. “I didn’t remove the tape from my fingers earlier, and so I assumed that this would feel better for you.” He glanced down at where the two of them were joined. “I also brought in some hand lotion. Would you prefer that I used it?”

“Giving me the star treatment, huh? I’m honored.” Takao let out a weak chuckle, which turned into some kind of scratchy moan as his boyfriend frowned and gave a particularly hard squeeze. “Okay, geez, Shin-chan! Yeah, the lotion would be good. And maybe while you’re up, you can get rid of these.” He snapped the elastic of Midorima’s boxers. 

“No, I’ll be leaving those on,” he said, as he reached out and grabbed the bottle on the bedside table. In two deft motions he spun the cap open and squeezed out a small handful, letting the white fluid pool in his palm.

Takao swallowed hard. He didn’t know it was possible for a person to be so far gone that just looking at lotion turned them on, but here he was. At a whole new level of hot and bothered. “But I want to touch you too.” 

“No. I need to focus.” 

"Oh come on, it's not like you're defusing a bomb or something. How much focus does it take to play with someone's dick?"

"I'm leaving them on."

And that was that. Takao felt a twinge of disappointment as he watched Midorima recap the bottle one-handedly and put it away, but this this was short-lived, disappearing with a flash as soon as his boyfriend returned his newly-slicked-up hand to his former position. 

The lotion added a new level of sensation to the experience, multiplying the number of moving parts and leaving dirty wet noises with each stroke. After a few more moments of fumbling, Midorima found a good position next to him and let his hand fall into a steady pace, slow but unrelenting, and so deeply satisfying that all Takao could do was groan and try to restrain himself from writhing around too much. 

Eventually he got accustomed to the feeling, and began to crave more. With a grunt of effort, he adjusted the set of his hips against the mattress and bucked upward into Midorima's hand, increasing the speed. 

"You want it harder?" Midorima took a break from laying wet kisses on Takao's collarbone to ask, his voice a muffled whisper. Takao nodded vigorously in response, and then gasped as he felt his boyfriend grasp him tight. 

Midorima kept working him faster and harder, increasing the intensity until the world around him started to fade away, pleasure softening its edges and washing out its colors. The heat that had been flooding through Takao's body moved down to condense in his groin, signaling his climax, and with a groan he reached to the side to grab hold of his boyfriend's hips. 

"Get on top of me, Shin-chan," he said. With a wordless nod, Midorima let Takao position him so he was straddling Takao's thighs and hovering him over him, hand still locked around his swollen member. As soon as they were in place, he started thrusting upward, sliding his dick through the firm pressure of Midorima's fingers with ecstatic abandon. 

It was all too much. The feel of Midorima's hand, the uneven sound of his breathing, the incredible, awe-filled look in those green eyes whenever Takao was lucid enough to catch a glimpse of them- no matter how much he wanted all of these things to continue, he couldn't go another second in the same universe as them without going crazy.

And so Takao closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around Midorima, and let go.

 

 

By the time he regained himself, Midorima was already sliding off of his legs and back onto the bed. Takao instinctively reached out for him, hoping to pull him in for a hug. but his boyfriend wrinkled his nose and pushed his hands away. 

"We should clean up first," he said, nodding down at Takao's chest. Takao followed his gaze to find a few wet streaks splattered there. Following this observation to its logical conclusion, he then looked over at Midorima's hands. A residual shudder of arousal snaked through him when he saw that they were also dripping with his come.

The hungry look in his eyes didn’t escape Midorima’s notice. "And stop _staring_ at me like that. Honestly, Kazunari, you can be so impossible..." he muttered, as he yanked a few tissues from the box by the bed. 

The two wiped themselves down quickly- and in Takao's case with some difficulty, considering how drained and heavy he still felt- and then laid back down in bed. “Now can we cuddle?" Takao asked sleepily, scooting in closer to his boyfriend.

Midorima nodded and lifted his arm, inviting Takao into his embrace. 

The two of them lay in silence for a few seconds, enjoying the afterglow. At one point Takao was afraid that he was going to fall asleep, but luckily Midorima spoke up at just the right time.

"Was that alright, Kazunari?" 

His voice was soft and maybe a little unsure of itself- or maybe he was just tired. In any case, hearing those words come from his ordinarily so self-assured boyfriend made Takao’s heart clench. 

Takao dropped a kiss on Midorima's cheek. "It was amazing, Shin-chan. Really. I'm so happy right now."

Midorima's lips tightened, as if he was trying not to smile. It made Takao's own mouth turn up just to see them. "That's good," he said simply.

There was no way that Takao could keep from kissing him right then, so he didn't even try to hold back. And soon enough one kiss became two, and two became twelve or something, and before Takao knew what he was doing his hand had slid dangerously low on his boyfriend’s back. 

"So, are you going to let me return the favor now?" Takao asked, trying to pitch his voice as seductively as possible. He felt Midorima's dick twitch against where it was nestled into his thigh, and he couldn't help but smirk. In a slow, languorous motion, he slid his leg against his boyfriend's hardness. “I guess I’ll take that as a yes-"

With a sigh, Midorima pulled away. "Takao. We discussed this earlier.”

Takao frowned at the sudden loss of warmth. “Well yeah, but… earlier, you said that was just because you needed to focus or whatever.”

“Exactly.”

“But if I’m doing it to you, what would you even have to focus _on_?” That came out sounding more frustrated than Takao had intended to, and so he bit his lip. Because he wasn’t really frustrated with Midorima, he didn’t think. Sure, the rejection stung a bit, but his feelings right then seemed more along the lines of confusion than anything else. As if Midorima’s head were a maze, and he had made an unexpected wrong turn. “It’s not like you have to do anything in particular. I just want to make you feel good.”

Midorima was silent for a moment, a look of concentration on his face. Takao wasn’t sure if that was because he was actually considering what he had to say, or whether he was just figuring out the best way to word his objections to it.

It ended up being the latter. “I want that too. But even if I want it, I still don’t feel prepared for it,” he said, slowly, quietly. He looked over at Takao. “I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you want to hear. But someday soon…”

Midorima’s face had gotten serious again, and at that moment, any disappointment that Takao might have felt was entirely drowned out by his desire to make him smile like he had before.

He took his boyfriend’s hand, squeezed. “Take as much time as you need, Shin-chan. There’s no hurry,” he said. He let out a little laugh. “It’ll take me a while to recover from today anyway, because wow. I knew that doing it with you would be good, but that was _really_ good. Like, eleven out of ten good.”

To Takao’s relief, Midorima’s face softened, although his words were as prickly as ever. “It’s not my fault that you’re so easy to please.”

Takao chuckled again and moved in closer, winding his arms around Midorima once more. He pressed his lips to Midorima’s cheek. “Thank you, Shin-chan. I’m really happy.”

His boyfriend merely hummed in response, not deigning to make any embarrassing statements of his own. But he relaxed into Takao’s hold, and closed his eyes, and at that moment, Takao felt like he had everything he wanted.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter sets the record for the most drawn-out and needlessly dramatic handjob in fanfic history, but oh well. It's the best I can do right now. 
> 
> Thanks for being patient with my slow writing pace. Next chapter should be on the shorter side (so maybe it won't take that long to churn out?), and then we're on to the Winter Cup, which should be fun. There's a lot more of this story left to go, and even if it takes a while, I promise to get there eventually.


	8. Chapter 8

When Takao had told Midorima that nothing would change between the two of them after they had sex, he had genuinely believed that he was telling the truth. He had loved Midorima long before the two of them had even gotten together, and he had kept on loving him ever since- it wasn’t as if minor things like seeing his body up close and learning what he was like in bed was going to impact the way he felt about him. As far as Takao was concerned, only good things could come from taking their relationship to the next level, and so he had pressed forward without even a hint of regret. 

For that reason, it came as a surprise when things _did_ change, and almost immediately, too. And try as he might, Takao couldn't come to a firm decision on whether or not this change had been for the better.

On one level (read, the “finally getting his virgin ass laid after nearly a year of sexual frustration: level), things were awesome. Really, just... awesome. And it wasn't only the physical pleasure from Midorima touching him that made him feel that way, although he couldn't deny that that had been considerable. 

But no, the feeling that had stuck with Takao most in the days and weeks following this first encounter hadn't had anything to do with physical things, or the rush of victory from sexual conquest- it was simply the awareness that what the two of them had done together had been a big step for Midorima, and how happy he felt that his boyfriend had finally become comfortable enough with Takao and their relationship to try it. It was a sweet feeling, something a little different than all of his gross dirty fantasies about their first time had been prior to it actually happening, and Takao cherished it every time he remembered it. 

So yeah, that was one unexpected consequence of having kind-of-sex with Midorima that Takao hadn't anticipated. One thing that had changed, despite Takao promising that nothing would. 

If it had been the only one, Takao wouldn't even have bothered worrying about it. It was stupid to think that things like loving your boyfriend too much and being too happy about the nice things that he did for you could be real legitimate issues. But the problem was that, soon enough, it became clear that there were other changes at hand. 

Like that thing that happened one day after practice, when Takao, despairing at the thought of having to study for the next afternoon's math test alone, had invited Midorima over to his house to keep him company in his misery. Up until that point, this had been such a natural thing for Takao to do that he didn't even think about it, or about how the implications of what he was asking might have changed. Midorima had agreed, also in his normal and natural way, and they had headed back to his house. 

It hadn't crossed Takao's mind that this invitation could have been construed in a sexual way until much later that evening, as he lay boneless and happy in bed next to Midorima. Once again, Midorima had taken care of Takao with his hands, and once again he had refused to let Takao touch him in return. (At this point in time, Takao still wasn't too worried about this). When the thought finally did strike him, though, he couldn't help but frown.

"You know that I wasn't planning this, right? Like, when I invited you over to study, that wasn't code for... doing this stuff."

Midorima let out a lazy huff of laughter, pulling Takao closer in towards his chest. "You can be honest with me, Kazunari. I understand."

Irritation twinged in Takao's chest, a sticky sensation that felt out of place among the more calm and loving ones that he had been experiencing just a few seconds before. Midorima didn't believe him. 

He wiggled his way out of Midorima's arms. "You _don't_ understand, though. I'm not like some 24/7 pervert that needs you to sexually service me at every opportunity. I really was just hoping to hang out today."

"Whatever you say, Kazunari."

Midorima had been half-napping before, and from the way that his words had slurred slightly when he responded, that half-nap was about to become a full-fledged one. Begrudgingly, Takao let him drift off, trying to let the hurt that had suddenly flared up drift away with him.

Two days after that, there had been a pro basketball game on TV that both of them had been planning to check out. He'd considered inviting Midorima over again to see it with him. But in the end he decided to watch alone. 

 

For the next few weeks, things stayed like this. The Winter Cup inched closer and closer, and so Shuutoku's practices stretched longer and longer. Takao found that he didn't mind their ramped-up training schedule too much. Sure, he missed having free time in the evenings- and also, come to think of it, even having time that _wasn't_ free, because _wow_ was he behind on his schoolwork, and counting backwards in his head he realized he hadn't been home and awake long enough to have a single conversation with his mom or Moriko for at least two days now. 

But he had to admit that the proliferation of practices quite elegantly solved the problem of how to avoid spending too much time alone with Midorima.

They continued to spend a lot of time together at school, of course, and their relationship there was like it always had been. Even though Takao was still banned from visiting Midorima’s classroom during lunch, that interdiction wasn’t enough to prevent him from finding his boyfriend several times throughout the day and pestering him. And it didn’t stop Midorima from (grudgingly) allowing himself to be found. 

On the court, things were also the same. Takao may have had weird daydreams at some point about how maybe their chemistry during basketball would get even better the more their romantic relationship progressed, and these turned out not to be true. But at least their coordination didn’t get any worse.

And then after practice, there was rarely any time to spend alone together before the pair of them had to get home. They would exchange a few texts as they studied at night, and then they would fall into bed, exhausted, and repeat everything again the next day. 

There were a few times when the pair had gone out just the two of them to get food together after practice. Although doing this made Takao a little apprehensive- once the two of them were alone at a restaurant, it would be all too easy to end up alone at one of their houses, or in one of their beds, and Takao didn’t want to feel guilty for whatever happened after that- in the end he found that he was worrying about nothing. There was always enough homework waiting for them at their houses that, even if he had wanted to go home together after that, Midorima would have shot him down immediately for being irresponsible.

It worried Takao a little, how he was starting to feel relieved each time that this happened rather than disappointed.

Of course, this routine that they’d fallen back into held true only during the week. On weekends- particularly Sundays, when they didn’t have practice to worry about- things went a bit differently.

Takao became aware of this the very first Sunday after their new stage of intimacy had began, when he woke up bright and early to a text from Midorima. _“My house is far too noisy right now,”_ Takao read, fighting to keep his eyelids open. _“I have no idea why our landscapers needed to arrive at such an ungodly hour. Would you mind if I came to your place?”_

_“Sure, come right over,”_ Takao typed back, too tired to fully comprehend what he was saying. It took a few seconds after he’d hit the “send” button to realize what a grave error he’d committed. 

And then after a few minutes of adrenaline-filled power-brainstorming, he started to type out a second text message. 

_“Or actually I was thinking. It’s been a while since we’ve been on a date, right? What if we went out somewhere?”_

Midorima was quick to respond. _“We have never once been on a date. And there is a reason for that, if you recall.”_

Takao rolled his eyes. _“I’m not saying we have to make out in public or wear matching sweaters or whatever. Just it might be fun to go do something.”_ He racked his brain, trying to think of someplace that his boyfriend might want to go. 

He came up with an idea and did a quick internet search as to its feasibility on the phone. He was in luck. It was still in town. 

Since Midorima was taking a while to respond anyway, he floated this proposal in a second text. _“Like that traveling exhibit at the history museum that you said you wanted to see a few weeks ago. With the Chinese pottery. Do you want to go look at that with me?”_

_“I find it hard to believe that you’ve suddenly developed an interest in Ming vases.”_

Takao chuckled. He could hear the skepticism in his boyfriends words almost as clearly as if Midorima were standing right next to him in his room, and they were talking face to face. 

For a moment his resolve wavered. It would be nice to spend some time alone with Midorima, just chatting, decompressing. It had been a long week. If Midorima did come over, they probably wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. His mom was at work, but Moriko was right in the next room. _“Well yeah, not really tbh. But it’s only in town for another week, so if we don’t see it now you’ll miss it.”_

Midorima didn’t respond for a minute or so. Takao was just about to send him another message, possibly one in which he gave up on pushing the date idea and invited Midorima over against his own best judgement, but his text tone chirped before he could start to write. 

_“I feel that I ought to be more suspicious of your motives. But I’ll take you up on your offer anyhow.”_

Takao smiled, so pleased with his success that he didn’t even mind Midorima’s follow-up text ordering Takao to pick him up in the rickshaw and acquire his lucky item (a candy bar) from the convenience store on the way over. Despite his equivocal-at-best attitude toward displays of ancient pottery, he really thought that he had stumbled on a perfect solution. At the museum he would be able to hang out alone (more or less) with his boyfriend to his heart’s content, but without the pressures that came along with being _too_ alone. 

You know, _weekend dates_ , he thought, as he dragged himself out of bed and into a semi-nice outfit. Dates with Midorima on the weekend. Maybe he was on to something there. 

 

.

 

At Takao’s insistence, weekend dates became a “thing” after that. And for a desperate last-ditch attempt for Takao to stay in control of his baser urges, he was surprised by how fun they ended up being.

He didn’t stress out too much about coming up with ideas for things to do. After all, they had already been doing some typical “date” stuff since forever, like hanging out at arcades (well, he guessed that “hanging out” at arcades was typical; waiting for more than an hour by the crane machine as Midorima tried over and over to grasp a specific toy that could serve as a lucky item for his sister was probably less so) and going to movies and restaurants and stuff. It took a little extra effort to come up with ideas that were a step or two higher on the “romance” ladder, especially since he had to make it appear to the public that they were no more than just close friends. 

But Takao had creativity, an internet connection, and his little sister’s shoujo-manga-inspired advice, and so he felt that he was up to the challenge. 

One Sunday, when the snow was flurrying just enough to be pretty but not enough to deter them from going outside, the pair of them went ice skating in an outdoor rink. Midorima had never skated before, and Takao spent most of his time guffawing at his boyfriend as he wobbled around like a baby deer and clutched at the guardrail. But eventually he got the hang of it, and the two were able to skate side by side. The snow became heavier, and some flakes got caught in Midorima’s long eyelashes. When Takao saw this, his heart skipped a beat, and he dealt with his feelings by making fun of Midorima some more.

The next Sunday, the two of them caught a double feature at the movie theater. The movies were generic action flicks, nothing to write home about. However, there were plenty of explosions and Midorima had bought a whole bag of popcorn just for Takao (“as if I would indulge in such a thing. Do you have any idea how many known carcinogens are in movie theater butter?”), so he was content. 

But unfortunately, the weekend dates hadn’t prevented every lapse in judgement. The pair of them had found themselves alone together a few times over the course of the weeks, and while they didn’t have sex _every_ time it was possible and decent to do so, they still ended up in bed together more often than Takao had planned. 

It wasn’t as if Takao was always the one to initiate it. Although Midorima still refused to let Takao help get him off, he seemed eager to take care of Takao, even when he didn’t ask for that kind of attention. It wasn’t _totally_ Takao’s fault. 

But none of that helped to quell the vague guilt that always popped up in his chest after the fact, predictable as clockwork, but never enough to actually stop him from doing the thing that made him feel guilty. Because once again, even though Midorima didn’t protest at all, it didn’t seem like he wanted it. Whenever Takao asked if he could touch him back, he always gave the same response: not now, but someday soon.That Midorima wanted him too, but wasn’t ready yet. 

This hadn’t bothered Takao at the beginning, but it was starting to more and more. He was getting a sneaking suspicion that the “someday soon” that Midorima was promising him now was one and the same as the “someday soon” that he’d used to talk about in the past the past, before they had started any of their tentative forays below the belt. It was possible that Midorima had never really prepared himself to go even for as far as they had gotten, and that the only reason that they had taken their most recent step was because Midorima thought that they were on some kind of fixed timeline, with deadlines that needed to be met and promises that needed to be kept. 

Takao didn’t want to believe that Midorima was thinking this kind of stuff. After all, his boyfriend had told him flat out on any number of occasions that he wanted Takao too, and in an unquestionably physical way. Like that night a week or two ago just after that history exam, when Midorima, who had perhaps been a bit more sleepy and out-of-it than normal after a night of last-minute cramming, had accompanied Takao’s orgasm with what might have been the dirtiest stream of words that he had ever heard come out of his boyfriend’s mouth. He couldn’t remember exactly what Midorima had said, but it had been something along the lines of Takao being way too sexy and Midorima wanting to feel his insides or something. That had been an ego trip, to say the least. 

But even though Midorima had never lied to Takao (at least as far as Takao knew), that still didn’t mean that he could take everything he said at face value…

As the weeks went by, Takao continued to worry about this. He wondered if he was doing something wrong. He wondered what Midorima was thinking. He wondered what he should do, and, even if he knew what he was supposed to do, whether he had enough willpower to do it.

And then, one night, a week and a day before the start of the Winter Cup, all of Takao’s preoccupations came to a head. 

School had been closed on that fateful Friday for a holiday. Takao’s mother and Moriko had both been away during the afternoon, the former fighting her way through overtime hours at work, the latter through the social intricacies of a mall-crawl-slash-sleepover party, and being home alone all day felt weird and restless to Takao. 

For the most part, he wouldn’t have said that he had the time to feel restless. Especially in the weeks preceding the Winter Cup, his schedule felt like it was bursting at the seams, filling up his hours with harsh basketball practices, mentally draining assignments, and now also weekend dates. 

But as soon as he got a few seconds to slow down, sure enough, his thoughts started running back to the paths they’d worn down so heavily over the past year or so, paths that started with a vague desire to see Midorima and then proceeded to add extra conditions to that, like wanting to kiss Midorima, and touch him, and maybe get touched back in return…

That time, when he invited Midorima over to “watch TV or whatever”, he may have had an ulterior motive or two.

Within fifteen minutes of Midorima walking through the door to Takao's apartment, the pair had stripped down to their boxers and fallen in bed. They kissed like they hadn't seen each other in a hundred years, rather than the single day (nineteen hours, actually, but who was counting?) that it had actually been. 

"I missed you, Shin-chan," Takao said, pressing his words into the cracks between their kisses. "I've been thinking about you all day."

“Hm. Is that so?” Midorima had already been a little pink in the face from the slight oxygen deprivation that came along with their really intense makeout sessions- it had been nine months since their first kiss, but they were still working out some of the kinks- but it was possible that he flushed even darker upon hearing that. "What... ah, what exactly was it that you were thinking of?"

Takao smiled against Midorima's lips. "Just this." He laughed. "I haven't gotten any kisses at all since... wow, I think last weekend? I needed a refill."

"You needed a _re-_ " Midorima shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kazunari. You’re a human, not an automobile.”

"Oh come on, there’s nothing ridiculous about wanting kisses." Takao chuckled. "Don't you ever feel, like, I don't know, kinda worn down, when we haven't seen each other for a while?"

"We saw each other just yesterday at school."

"You know what I mean."

Midorima hesitated, but then pressed another kiss to Takao's lips. "I might."

The two continued like that for a while, just kissing and holding each other, feeling the weight of a busy, stressful week melt away as they got lost once again in that world that their bodies formed. Takao could have stayed there for hours or days or (in his most embarrassing and secret dreams) the rest of his life. 

When he felt the elastic of his boxers start to slide down his hips, Takao didn't have it in him to protest, especially when the airy fabric was replaced by the firm warmth of his boyfriend's hand. 

Takao let out a low moan, which made Midorima hum in response. "Is that good?" he asked. 

"Yeah, yeah it's great." 

It did feel great, especially when Midorima's lips began to wander away from Takao's and towards the rest of his body. He kissed a trail down Takao's neck and to his chest, moving slowly from one stretch of skin to the next, as if he were an artist carefully deciding where a certain stroke of paint should be placed. Midorima's kisses were like Midorima himself, he supposed. Precise, thoroughly calculated, but gentle and sweet in spite of that. 

Also, they turned Takao on like nothing else in the goddamn _world_. 

Takao was so lost in the dual sensation of Midorima's hand on his cock and his lips on his skin that he didn't immediately realize when Midorima shifted on the bed, pulling back and settling his weight squarely between Takao’s legs. However, when he removed his lips from where they had been mouthing along the divots of his abs, Takao couldn't help but take notice. 

Looking down, he saw Midorima crouching in the V between his legs, eyes fixed intently on where his hand was still slowly stroking Takao's cock. 

It wasn't like that was the first time that Midorima had just sat there and stared at Takao's naked body for a few seconds, so at first, he didn't really give it a second thought. Instead, the majority of the thoughts in his mind were bent on figuring out a way to get Midorima's mouth back on his. 

"Like what you see, Shin-chan?" he asked, voice low, repositioning himself to give his boyfriend a better view. 

And it seemed like Midorima _did_ like it. At least, if the involuntary little twitch that wracked his body, causing him to grip Takao harder for the space of a second, was any indication.

Takao moaned, possibly more for theatrics than anything, and collapsed even further back into the bed. “Ah, Shin-chan, slow down, it feels too good,” he breathed. “Get back up here, I want to kiss…”

He reached down and wrapped a hand around his boyfriend’s bicep, trying to pull him toward himself. But to his surprise, Midorima refused to let himself be moved. 

Takao frowned. He didn’t think that Midorima saw this, but he must have- the kiss that his boyfriend dropped on his thigh afterwards felt a little too apologetic for him to not have seen. “What are you-“

“I was thinking we could try something new.” Midorima blurted the words out quickly, and then turned his head, as if embarrassment made it physically impossible for him to look Takao in the face right then. “I was… well, what would you think about…”

He paused for a moment and Takao looked down, mind racing as he tried desperately to read him. Because this was it, wasn’t it? If Midorima wanted to try something new, that must mean that… well, it was the next step in their relationship, right? That must mean that he was ready to let Takao touch him back or-

Midorima’s face changed then, transforming from that look he got whenever he had to speak in front of the class or try a new food that he felt suspicious of into that determined look he made whenever he walked onto a basketball court.

Before Takao could do anything to react to this, like say some encouraging words, or slide the hand that was still holding his arm up to cradle his face, or any of the other half-formed romantic ideas that were bouncing around in his head, Midorima took a deep breath, bent down, and slid Takao’s cock into his mouth. 

That was _not_ what Takao had expected.

He let out a garbled cry, caught between surprise and (entirely instinctive, somewhat guilty) pleasure. “ _Holy shit_ , what are you…”

He didn’t manage to finish that sentence. Midorima was doing something with his tongue now, something that felt so _weird_ but also so good that all of Takao’s energy automatically diverted itself into clutching onto his boyfriend’s shoulders and trying not to make any more stupid slutty sounds. 

Which of course, only spurred his boyfriend to work Takao’s cock more vigorously. To suck, and lick, make those filthy, wet noises that made his whole body shudder with arousal. 

“Shin-chan, stop,” Takao groaned, but try as he might, he couldn’t get himself to sound like he meant it. He knew- or at least, the rational, caring part of him that he had been listening to less and less these days knew- that something was wrong with this picture. This wasn’t what the next step for them was supposed to be. It wasn’t what Takao _wanted_ it to be. 

Someday later, once all of these things that kept happening between them felt less one-sided and uncertain, Takao knew that he would love nothing more than to let Midorima suck his dick. He had wanted that for a long time, and he wanted it even more now that it was actually happening, because- once again, _holy shit_ \- Midorima could do it like a pro. Takao had on some level expected this, knowing how his boyfriend liked to do everything humanly possible (and then some) to prepare for any difficulties he might have to face. But nothing could have prepared him for how erotic Midorima looked with a dick shoved deep into his mouth, green hair mussed, eyes hazy as he bobbed his head sensually around him…

Takao closed his eyes and looked away. Nope, he reminded himself. No. No matter how awesome this looked, it was not okay. 

“Stop it. I’m serious.” This time, Takao punctuated his words with a firm shove against Midorima’s shoulder. “ _Shin-chan.”_

It took a few seconds for Takao’s words to filter through to Midorima, but eventually he saw his boyfriend’s expression change to one of confusion. Slowly, he drew his lips off of Takao’s dick, wiping at the saliva that had accumulated there with the back of his wrist as he sat up. Takao had to look away again at that. How was it that someone as nerdy as Midorima could be so casually _sexy_?

“Why did you stop me? Was I doing it… incorrectly?”

The sincere concern in his boyfriend’s voice made Takao’s chest hurt, and that feeling alone made him want to take back what he’d said, to just go “never mind” and let Midorima continue with what he had been doing before. But he resisted this urge.

“No, no, you were doing… it was great, it felt really good.” Takao rubbed the back of his head, wondering how to put his concerns into words. “I just feel like this is the kind of thing that we need to talk about before jumping into, that’s all.”

Midorima frowned. “I wanted to do it, and you liked it. What else is there to talk about?”

On the outside, Midorima’s argument seemed perfectly sensible, and for a moment Takao wondered whether he was just being paranoid. If Midorima himself said that he wanted to do this, and had gone through the trouble of initiating it when Takao had never brought it up, what reason was there to think that he didn’t actually want it? 

There was no reason. But still, Takao couldn’t help but feel like something about this felt wrong.

He sighed. Midorima was still kneeling between his legs. Takao scooted backwards, creating some distance between them. “I don’t know,” he said, a bit of verbal filler that nonetheless felt very true to him right then. “I guess sometimes… I just wonder what you’re getting out of this. Like, every time we do it, it’s just you doing things for me. You never let me touch you back.”

“Don’t be stupid, I let you touch me all the time.”

“You know what I mean.” Takao’s eyes flicked down to Midorima’s boxers, where as usual, a prominent tent could be seen. “Like right now. You are obviously turned on, Shin-chan. There is no way that you can sit there with a boner the size of Siberia and tell me that you have no desire to do anything about it. But even though you jack me off whenever I’m even slightly in the mood, you’ve never once let me help you with _that.”_

“I like touching you. It’s… satisfying, in its own right. I don’t need you to touch me back for me to enjoy it.” 

“Maybe you don’t need it, but don’t you _want_ it?”

Midorima didn’t respond to that, other than by continuing to sit there and look troubled. Letting out a sigh, Takao rested a hand on Midorima’s arm and rubbed little circles into it, trying to reassure his boyfriend, he supposed, or whatever. Maybe this talk had been a stupid idea. It didn’t seem like they were getting anywhere. 

“If there’s anything that you want, then that’s what I want too,” he continued, still struggling to find the right words. “You know that. If you want me to touch you, then I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d be _happy_ to. And if you don’t want any of this, then we’ll stop.”

Midorima looked away. “I’ve already told you that I want it. But as far as actually letting you do it, it’s not that simple.” 

“Why isn’t it though?” When Midorima didn’t respond again, Takao continued. “Like, I think about this a lot, you know. I worry about it. At first I thought that you weren’t actually attracted to me or to men in general or whatever, and that when I asked you out all that time ago, you wanted to say no but were afraid to screw up our friendship or whatever-“

Midorima snorted. “Does that sound like me at all, Kazunari?”

“Well no, of course not! And I don’t think that anymore. All this stuff we’re doing now- even though you never want to go all the way, I can tell that you’re horny enough that you _could_ if we, you know, put in a little effort. But then that kinda makes it worse, because I don’t understand what’s holding you back.” 

Takao took in a deep breath, inviting Midorima to interrupt if he had something to say. Midorima did not take that invitation. So Takao started up his rant again, hoping that if he could just talk for long enough, could just say enough honest things in a row, then maybe Midorima would get caught up in it and say an honest thing or two of his own.

“Clearly you’re not opposed to the principle of having sex, because you do all this stuff to me. And I know that you masturbate, that you get yourself off sometimes.” Takao sighed, and paused for a moment. “Honestly, knowing all of that, it kind of makes me think that you’re just afraid of me messing up and doing it wrong. I can’t think of another explanation that makes sense.”

That, at least, got a reaction out of Midorima, even if that reaction was just him rolling his eyes. “As if I could be afraid of you. You can be an idiot sometimes, but even an idiot would know enough not to savage somebody’s genitals when giving a handjob. I have that much faith in you, at least.”

“Thanks, I’m honored,” Takao said, accompanying his words with a joyless chuckle. “But still. Even if you’re not afraid of me, it kinda seems like you’re afraid of something.” 

He looked over at Midorima, catching those green eyes with his own. The intensity there almost made him lose the nerve to say what he was planning next. But he ended up blurting it out anyway. “Sometimes I worry if, well… if maybe you don’t want to do it because you’ve had a bad experience in the past. Like, maybe you didn’t want to do it, but somebody-“

Midorima had looked confused at the beginning, but eventually his eyes widened in comprehension. “ _No_ , Kazunari. No, I have not been… are you asking if I’ve been abused? That’s terrible, why would you think that?“

“I don’t know, it’s not like I wanted to think it!” Takao felt stupid now. And the relief that suddenly spiked through him, opening up airways that he hadn’t even known had constricted and slowing his heart’s rapid beating, made him feel even stupider. “But like I said. I worry about you. You’re hard to read sometimes. I don’t always know what’s going on in your head.”

“Honestly, Kazunari.” Midorima shook his head. “I have a suggestion for you. What if, instead of inventing all of these unnecessary things that have no basis in reality to worry about, you simply listen to what I am _telling_ you?”

“But you never tell me anything!”

“I’ve already told you everything that is important. I’ve said that I’m not ready, and that’s because I need to prepare more. That’s all there is to say.” Midorima sighed and sat back on the bed, as if he really expected their conversation to end just like that. 

Takao wasn’t ready to let it go, though. 

“But what are you even preparing for?” he wondered. “If anything, I’m the one that should be preparing. I’m the one who actually has to, you know,” Takao flapped his hands around in a vague pumping motion, “ _do_ it.”

“I suppose that’s true. I have nothing that I need to plan, exactly.” He frowned.“But then again, not being able to plan something out, step by step, takes its own kind of preparation.” 

Takao didn’t know what to say to that. So in he end, he didn’t say anything. He just kept holding on to Midorima, stroking his arm, and trying to understand. But all the while, he got the sneaking suspicion that what Midorima was feeling right now might never entirely make sense to him. He was beginning to think that it might be another one of those things like his lucky items, something that he would just have to learn intellectually and memorize and account for in his daily life and the way he made decisions but never really, truly empathize with. 

And Takao was okay with that. He loved Midorima, and wanted to give him all of the love that his weird mannerisms and defense mechanisms had maybe prevented other people from giving him before. But sometimes he still needed to take time to understand things, and to come to terms with his own confusion and (well, he guessed there was no better term for it) frustration.

Midorima waited patiently as Takao remained silent for a while- or, perhaps not a while, but at least longer than usual, considering how chatty Takao was ordinarily. But eventually the pressure to speak must have grown too great, and so he opened his mouth. 

“In any case, that’s how I feel.” His eyes were sad. Takao looked at them anyway, trying to do so purely with love. “If you want me to leave I would understand.”

Takao had simply been stroking Midorima’s arm before, but suddenly found himself gripping it. “Of course I don’t want you to go!” he said, words spilling from him rapidly, before he even had time to think about what he was saying. “I’m not mad at you or anything; I’m just thinking. Please don’t go.”

Midorima didn’t seem convinced. At least not fully. “What are you thinking, then?” he asked. 

“I’m thinking…” Takao wasn’t sure how to respond to that. After all, he hadn’t really been _thinking_ , when he’d said that. It was more like he had been sitting there and, well, feeling intensely. Which he supposed was a type of thought, except that it didn’t do much to give him clarity, or any sense of what he should do next. 

But that was okay. Because deep down, in the part of his heart that was most distanced from his impulses and genitals and sex drive, he had already known what he needed to do from the start. 

“I’m thinking that I don’t want to have sex anymore,” he said. Those words felt like hundred pound weights as they spilled from his mouth, but he let them spill anyway. “At least, not until you’re ready to do it too.”

There was silence for a moment. And then Midorima’s eyes widened, while Takao felt his eyes probably do the same. 

Why the hell had he said that? He loved having sex with Midorima. It felt great. It was everything that he’d been having wet dreams about since the day he’d started high school. Sure, they were having some problems understanding each other now, but pulling away from Midorima sure as hell wouldn’t bring the two of them closer together…

But at the same time, a part of him knew that, even if it sucked, he had said the right thing. He had been feeling guilty for weeks nonstop now, and even though he wasn’t entirely sure why he had been feeling that way, he figured that where there was smoke, there also had to be fire. It wouldn’t hurt him one bit to back off while he tried to figure out what he was feeling so damn _bad_ about. 

The shitty part of him wanted Midorima to argue about this, but his boyfriend ended up just nodding his head in response. “That may be for the best, then. I hadn’t realized that you were so unhappy with the way things are now. And I’m sorry for that. I realize now that it was mostly my own fault.”

And with that, Midorima threw his legs over the edge of the bed, located his clothes, and started to put them back on. His face was a sculpture right then, carefully unemotional, eyes blank.

“Oh, come on, Shin-chan, I didn’t say that I was _unhappy._ Just that I was… you know. That I wanted both of us to be on the same page before we do it again.” 

If Midorima heard his words at all, he didn’t give any indication of it. By the time Takao stopped speaking, he was already almost fully dressed, just buttoning up the top two buttons on his shirt. 

“…I just don’t want to do it if you don’t want to.” Takao said lamely, as Midorima stood up. “I don’t know, I’m confused. I don’t know what to do. Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad.” Midorima said. His voice was unconvincing, but Midorima had never lied to him before, so Takao told himself that he should take his words at face value. “But I do need to get home now. Chiyako will be arriving back soon. I should be getting lunch ready…”

“But you just got here,” Takao began. “I’m sure it’ll be fine if you stay for a little longer-“

“I’m sorry.” Midorima said. He was already standing up at this point, and looking around the room, trying to figure out which corner he had thrown his bag into when he and Takao had breezed through the door before, too caught up in each other to pay attention to anything but the heat of their own bodies. 

That time had only been like half an hour ago. Takao was already nostalgic for those days. He hated fighting with Midorima. And even though they’d been talking civilly up until this point, neither of them raising their voices even the slightest decibel above the norm, he was beginning to understand that that was what they were doing. 

“Well, okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Takao said lamely. He wanted to get up and grab Midorima, to hug him, to let him know how completely not mad he was, how much he wanted for his boyfriend to stay, so that maybe they could talk things through all the way for once and understand each other at least a little bit. But Midorima was already halfway out the door, and he couldn’t get himself to move from the bed. 

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” he called out lamely to his boyfriend’s retreating back. “With the rickshaw. I’ll be there at the normal time.”

Midorima paused, nodded his understanding, and then left the room. A few moments later, Takao heard the front door to his apartment open and then close again, loudly, as if Midorima had slammed it. Except that Midorima wasn’t the type of person to slam doors. Maybe it the door had just taken more force than normal to close, since it was winter and the hinges were partially frozen or something? 

Takao didn’t know if there was any scientific basis to that. And then, as despair slowly shut his brain off,he realized that not only did he not know, but also that he did not care. All that he cared about was how Midorima had looked in the moment when he had been walking away from him, all of the hurt that had been on his face. 

Clearly, Takao had not done the right thing. If he had, Midorima would not be so upset right now that he was literally running away from him. 

But if that was the case, what should Takao have done instead?

He didn’t know. And even though he sat in that same position for hours after Midorima had left, replaying their conversation in his head, trying to figure out where he had made his first mistake, he found that he still didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if he knew anything anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha so yeah, this chapter took 6 months to write, isn't all that good, and in the end transforms from a normal happy fic into probably the most maudlin thing that I've written since I was a teenager. Sorry, I guess?
> 
> But aside from all that, it feels good to be posting stuff here again. I promise that I haven't given up on this story- I've just been really busy with real life and other projects and stuff recently. I can't promise that I'll update quicker in the future, but I can give you the empty assurance that I will try my best. 
> 
> Another note, just in case anyone is wondering- the end of this chapter probably marks the peak amount of angst that this fic (or at least, the parts of it that I have planned out) will ever have. I am definitely a fan of happy endings and happiness in general, and I don't relish writing even the small amounts of struggle + sad that I have put Midorima and Takao through. Things start getting fluffier very soon. I don't know if that's a plus or a minus to people, but since looking at this story objectively I feel like it could go either way at this point, I thought I would give you guys an idea of what to expect in the future.
> 
> That's all I have to say, other than thanks so much for reading to this point! Any feedback and kudos that you might want to leave are much appreciated.


	9. Chapter 9

“But you wouldn’t use that formula here, would you? I mean, the question gives us all of this shit about the voltage and capacitance and stuff, if we use that formula we don’t take any of that into account.”

“No, no, it’s like I keep telling you. That’s what Harada-sensei _wants_ us to think. It’s all a mind game, a fucking mind game. We have everything we need to calculate the magnetic field without all of that.” 

Takao heard some scratching sounds, like the noise a pencil in need of sharpening makes when dragged across a paper. This was followed by a loud “hey!”, and then a crash. 

And then a little chuckle. “Well that was smooth. Geez, you’ve got to chill out.”

“No, _you’ve_ got to stop writing all over my paper! I like to keep things… you know, neat…”

Takao, lying facing the wall in a cheap hotel bed, brought a cheap hotel pillow over his head and pressed it against his ears. For a moment he contemplated pressing it over his mouth as well. Even a slow and painful asphyxiation would have to be preferable to this. 

Normally he didn’t mind listening to people studying within his proximity. Certainly his relationship with Midorima would not have survived too long if he had minded, to say nothing of the group-study sessions that the second years on the team met up to have every so often. Takao wasn’t that big a fan of school, but he recognized that working hard to do well was worth the effort in the long run. 

But damn. These guys had been at it for _hours_.

Of course, Takao thought, he wouldn’t even _be_ in this predicament if Yuya had just let them pick their own rooms for the weekend of the Winter Cup, rather than being a massive dick and _assigning_ them, like some long-suffering primary school teacher trying to assert control over their unruly students. Takao frowned, thinking these thoughts for probably the hundredth time that night. Because somehow- and he had no idea how, like seriously what had Yuya even been thinking?- Takao had been placed in a room with Yuya and two other third years, while Midorima and Kimura were somewhere else in the hotel with another one of Takao’s second year friends, as well as a random (and probably completely intimidated) first year.

True, even if Takao had ended up rooming with his friends, they probably wouldn’t be doing anything more interesting than these third years were. They’d already wasted a fair bit of time after the first day of matches (all easy wins) by getting dinner and checking out the town some. If they wanted to get any homework done that weekend, they would have to work on it tonight. But at least if they were all in the same room Takao could have _joined_ them in their misery. They were all learning more or less the same thing, after all. 

He didn't even need to be rooming with them officially. Just knowing what room they were in would have been good enough. But Yuya, who had the sheet with the room assignments, was off sequestered somewhere with the coach discussing their strategy for the next day, and neither Midorima nor Kimura were answering their phones. 

It was super irritating. The two of them had to be somewhere in the hotel, maybe even right on the same hall as Takao. But short of a door-to-door search, Takao was just as powerless to find them as if they were on another planet. 

"What does sigma mean, again?"

"That's not a sigma, that's an epsilon. That’s the, ah…” Paper shuffled. “ That’s the electromotive force."

What the fuck was an electromotive force? For some incomprehensible reason, that was the last straw for Takao. He didn't have anywhere to go, yeah, but he couldn't stay in this room and let his ears get assaulted by all this foreign-language academic-ese.

He swung his legs out of bed and sat up, spending a few moments locating the TV remote. He'd had some brainless gameshow on before, just as background noise to make it look like he wasn't laying in bed and spacing out. But he figured that the third years would be happier without the distraction. 

"If anyone asks, I'm going for a run."

The third years didn't even look up. "Okay, cool. Remember to be back by-"

"Yeah, by ten. I know." Takao chuckled as he rummaged around in his bag, locating the long-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants that he'd worn on the bus up the night before. "Or it's death by pineapple for me, courtesy of _el capitán_."

One of the third years shook his head. "Honestly, sometimes I wonder what the other members of the Miyaji family are like. What are the chances that both of them turned out so violent?"

"I wouldn't call them violent, really. Maybe something more like... aggressively concerned about our wellbeing?"

“I guess that’s one way to put it." The third year rapped at the table, trying to get his friend's attention (which apparently had already started drifting back to sigmas and epsilons and other creepy crawlies). "Hey, were you there when Ootsubo and Miyaji Senior and them all came over after the first game?"

That got his friend's attention. "Huh? The senpai were there? Aren't they supposed to be busy with college and stuff?"

"Well yeah, but they came anyway. I guess they had a day off of practice or whatever. They say they might drop by here later tonight.”

"Shit, I guess we'd better finish up this problem set fast..."

Takao had finished changing. Slipping on his sneakers, he gave a few half hearted attempts at stretching and then headed towards the door. "Well, good luck with-" he gestured towards the stacks of papers and much-post-it-noted textbooks littered around the cramped hotel room table. "-all of that. I'll be back soon."

And after a few more mumbled, already-disinterested goodbyes, he made his way out of the room and into the nighttime. 

 

.

 

Well, he did not proceed _directly_ into the nighttime. If anybody had asked him what he was doing, he would have denied it, but he couldn't help but do a pass of the main hallways on their floor and the one below them, hoping that maybe he would stumble upon some of his teammates and, in doing so, receive some intel on where Midorima and Kimura might be.

But unfortunately, he had no such luck. It didn't seem possible that _everyone_ on his team would be holed up in their room with the door closed, studying, but he couldn't find any evidence to the contrary. 

He guessed that he really would have to go for a run, then. 

Not that he disliked the idea. January had been mild that year, so it wasn't too cold outside. Any chills that he might have initially felt disappeared when he finished stretching and got moving. Besides, he had never been in this part of town before, and it was always fun to explore a new place. The route they’d taken in on the bus had been lined mostly dull hotels and office buildings. However, it was well lit and non-sketchy, and he was confident that he could find something interesting in the area if he ran far enough.

Come to think of it, hadn’t he seen a public park on the way in? He remembered that there had been some basketball courts that had caught his eye, as well as some trees and grass and stuff, which was always nice. Maybe he would head there. Worst case scenario it would be full of hobos and he’d have to just keep on running past it…

He nodded. That sounded like a plan.

Keeping his pace at a leisurely jog,Takao continued down the road. He thought as he ran. Mostly about basketball.

Although none of their matches on that first day had been anything to write home about, he knew that bubble was going to burst soon: they were slated to play Yosen first thing tomorrow morning. That was going to be a tough match. It was one they’d been preparing for, of course, ever since the brackets for the Winter Cup had been released. But no matter how many videos of their past matches he watched, or how much time he spent strategizing with the rest of the team,he still couldn’t say with any certainty what the game tomorrow would be like. Yosen was the only one of the six top teams that Shuutoku hadn’t played in the past few years, and having to go up against such an unknown quantity had everyone’s anxiety running high.

The way Midorima was acting sure didn’t help either, Takao thought, feeling a flash of exasperation. It had been two seasons already that the two of them had been playing for Shuutoku. Midorima should have figured out by now what a vital role he, as their “ace”, played in keeping morale up. But ever since he and Takao had fought the previous week, his boyfriend had been quieter than usual, almost sullen. Even worse, when other members of their team had been discussing their chances against Yosen earlier that day and had asked him his opinion, Midorima had totally crushed their spirits with some pessimistic response, like “if the rest of you are able to prevent Murasakibara from blocking my shots, then we will win. Otherwise, we will not” or whatever. 

It wasn’t that what Midorima said was untrue. The fact that Murasakibara was tall enough to block even shots that took an almost-entirely vertical trajectory towards the hoop, as Midorima’s threes did, was a pretty big threat to their chances at victory. 

But still. Midorima didn’t need to be so _blunt_ about it. When he put it that way, their situation sounded almost hopeless. 

These thoughts continued to spin around in Takao’s head as he ran. He didn’t even notice the park that he had been running towards until he had pulled up right next to it. And as a matter of fact, he might _never_ have noticed it at all if the sound of somebody calling his name hadn’t pulled him back into reality. 

“Takaocchiiii!”

…well, at least he assumed it was his name. Some of the syllables were the same, at least?

The sound came from the opposite side of the road, and was located somewhat higher than the average human’s head height. Takao turned to face the noise. It was difficult to make out across the street, but there seemed to be somebody standing on the balcony of a second story hotel room, waving their arms back and forth. 

Takao squinted, wishing for a moment that he literally had hawk eyes, or that it was just a little bit lighter outside so he could see who it was. But eventually he had to accept his limitations. He checked for cars and jogged across the street. And once he was closer, he recognized the person who had called after him as none other than Kaijou’s Kise Ryouta. This must be the hotel where his team was staying. 

It wasn’t clear why Kise Ryouta would be calling Takao over. Although the two of them had met a few times in the past during tournaments, as well as during that shitshow with the American team the previous summer, they weren’t close friends or anything like that. To be honest, he was surprised that Kise remembered his name. But that didn’t stop Takao from waving back, and jogging over to stand below the balcony.

“Kise! Hey! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Yeah, Kaijou always stays at this hotel when we’re in Kyoto! It’s the best!” the blond trilled. “So I guess Shuutoku is somewhere around here too?” 

“Um, kinda. We’re up the road a little ways.” Takao tried to calculate in his head how far he had been running. It must have been a few kilometers at that point. Huh, come to think of it, this was probably a good time to take a break- he didn’t want to be too sore when they played Yosen tomorrow. 

“Up near the stadium?”

“Not quite that far.”

“Oh, okay.” Kise nodded. 

A gust of cool wind came though, and Takao saw Kise pull his sweatshirt closer around his shoulders. 

“So, Kise,” he began. “I can’t help but notice that it’s like five degrees right now, and you’re standing on a balcony. Are you locked out?” 

That could be why Kise had called Takao over. Maybe he needed assistance. Someone to catch him, perhaps, as he leapt over the balcony railing. Or maybe just somebody that he could land on to break his fall- Midorima did always complain about what a self-absorbed dick Kise was, so even though Takao hadn’t seen much evidence of this, he supposed he couldn’t put it past him. 

But Kise shook his head no. “I’m just hanging out,” he explained. “I’ve got some snacks, do you want to come up and help me eat them?”

The took Takao aback a little, for the same reasons as before, but he supposed he didn’t have a good reason to refuse. Besides, Kise seemed like an interesting guy. Takao wouldn’t mind killing time with him for a while. “Sure! What’s your room number?”

It was kind of surreal. One minute Takao had been jogging along the road like he always did, thinking about the same kinds of things that were always on his mind- and then the very next minute found him settling down on a chilly plastic fold-up chair on a strange hotel’s balcony, being offered chocolate by a grinning Kise Ryouta. It was like something out of his little sister’s wildest pubescent fantasies. 

“You never answered my question, though. Why is it that you’re eating snacks out here on the balcony, rather than in your room where it’s warmer?” Takao wondered, popping the piece of chocolate into his mouth. His eyebrows raised instinctively- what even was this? It tasted expensive. Like the kind of chocolate that was sold in boutique stores and had a wrapper that proudly boasted the amount of cocoa it contained. 

He checked the wrapper, which informed him that, sure enough, it was 97% pure cocoa. Shoot, now he regretted eating the whole thing at once. He decided to stop chewing and just let it sit on his tongue for a minute, so he could appreciate the flavor.

“Oh, that. Well, some of the guys are playing basketball over there,” Kise replied, pointing across the street. Takao hadn’t noticed it before, but there was quite a crowd on the court. A bunch of familiar faces from Kaijou and Seirin jumped out at him. “We’re playing Seirin tomorrow, so I wanted to check out the competition.”

Suddenly, another voice popped up behind him. “I remembered how much Takao-kun enjoyed spying on private basketball showdowns the first time we met, so I suggested that Kise-kun invite you up.”

And now the 97%-cocoa chocolate was splattered across the sidewalk two stories below them, having been propelled by a tremendous startle-induced spit-take. 

“What the- what?” Takao sputtered. He turned to see Seirin’s Kuroko sitting in a chair behind him, regarding him steadily with those huge, expressionless blue eyes. The look was softened slightly by the pink hand-knitted scarf that he had wrapped around his neck, but still. It was unnerving.“When did you get here?” 

“I’ve been here the whole time.”

Takao paused for a moment, processing this. And then he burst into laughter.

“Are you serious?” he said, struggling to get the words out. “I thought that… that misdirection thing was just something that you did on the court, I never thought that… when you’re just walking around and… and living your life and stuff…”

He was too overcome with hilarity to finish that thought. 

Beside him, Kuroko frowned. “I am beginning to feel like we’re being made fun of, Nigou.”

There was a quiet whine in reply and, for the first time, Takao noticed a little gray-and-white dog sitting on Kuroko’s lap. 

“ _Oh my God_ and you taught your dog to do it too!” He had almost recovered from his fit of laughter before, but that set it off again. He was utterly incapacitated for another few moments. “That’s… wow, that’s amazing. Is this real life?” he choked out. 

“Takaocchi, don’t be rude!” But Kise was giggling a little bit too. “Sorry, I should have warned you. But Kurokocchi is just so funny when he’s terrorizing people! I never get tired of it.”

“Kise-kun is easily amused,” Kuroko explained. 

Takao laughed. “I guess I am too, then.”

The three of them settled down after that and redirected their attention towards the game. Although it was getting late, the area was well-lit with streetlights, and for the most part they could make out what was going on across on the court.

Right then, it looked like Kagami was going head-to-head with a boy that Takao recognized from Kaijou’s B string, who was keeping up with him surprisingly well. Kagami was forced to pass the ball off to somebody else on his team. Takao squinted to see who itwas.

“Is that Himuro Tatsuya?” he asked, confused. Takao knew for a fact that the hotel Yosen was staying at was in the complete opposite direction, near the stadium. It was a long way for Himuro to come for just a pick-up game. 

“Um, yeah, I think so. He and Kagamicchi have been hanging out all afternoon- apparently they’re childhood friends or something?”

“Very close childhood friends. Kagami-kun thinks of him as a brother. They grew up together in America.”

Takao wasn’t sure what to make of the weird hint of bitterness in Kuroko’s voice, so he just ignored it. “Cool! I want to go to America someday. It would be fun to see an NBA game in person…”

Himuro made the shot, and his team fell back. Takao continued to try to spot people he knew. For the most part, both teams’ lineups consisted of haphazard mixes of players from Seirin, Kaijou, Yosen (Takao hadn’t seen him at first, but Murasakibara was also there, on the sidelines snacking on chips), and a few guys he didn’t recognize. 

“So, where’s Midorimacchi? It’s kinda weird to see you without him.”

The good mood that had been settling in for the past few minutes wavered. Takao had been trying not to think too much about Midorima lately. He didn’t want to throw off his game. 

But he’d be damned if he would let these guys know that. At the end of the day, they were all still rivals after all. “I don’t know where Shin-chan is, actually. Probably back at the hotel studying.”

Kise raised an eyebrow. “How can you not know? I thought you guys were attached at the hip. Or at least like telepathically or something.” 

Takao shook his head. “We’re friends, sure. But I think it’s healthy to not know where your friends are every minute of the day.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Kise said, slowly, as if he didn’t really believe what he was saying. “I mean, even though I text Kurokocchi all day long most days, there are some times when I don’t know where he is. Like, we could be talking about other stuff, rather than what we’re doing right then, so I wouldn’t know what-“

Kuroko looked over at Kise, and the blond let his ramble fade to silence. Kuroko then turned his attention back to Takao. “I think that what Kise-kun is trying to say is that, considering the way that Midorima talks about you, we had assumed that you two had gone beyond simply being friends.”

Takao could feel his heart beating faster now. What the hell? Wasn’t Kuroko supposed to be the polite one? He wouldn’t have pegged him as the kind of guy who would ask such a blunt question. 

But this was fine, he could still play this off as if it were nothing. 

“Huh? Are you trying to tell me that you guys think- “ He forced out a laugh. “That’s ridiculous, just what kind of stuff is Shin-chan saying about me?”

Kuroko didn’t respond. He just kept staring at Takao, one eyebrow raised slightly, as if he were waiting for the other boy to get all of the bullshit out of his system before he would deign to reenter the conversation.

After a few moments of this, Takao sighed and slumped down in his seat. “I can’t believe Shin-chan told you,” he grumbled. “He doesn’t let _me_ tell anyone.”

Kise gasped, bringing his hands up to press against his cheeks. “Oh wow, so it’s true! Our Midorimacchi has found love at last!”

And suddenly, in same way that one realizes it when somebody pours a tub of ice water on their head, Takao realized his error. He found himself stumbling over his words as he responded. “You said that you already knew! That’s cheating!”

“I mean, we _mostly_ knew! At least, Kurokocchi seemed super certain, and he’s normally right about this kind of stuff. But it feels different to know it for sure!”

“We won’t tell anybody else. Don’t worry,” Kuroko said, addressing the look of hypothermic shock that Takao could tell was still plastered across his own face. “However, Midorima-kun is a very transparent sort of person. I wouldn’t be surprised if others also had suspicions about you two.”

“Shit.” Takao raked his fingers though his hair. “Well, please don’t tell him that I told you. He’s pissed off at me enough as it is.” He looked over at Kuroko. “How could you even tell that we’re together, though? Shin-chan and I hardly ever see you guys. Like, when was the last time we even talked?”

“Kurokocchi knows everything. It’s another one of his miracle superpowers.”

“It’s nothing like that. Midorima-kun and I text each other sometimes, that’s all.” Kuroko chuckled. It was kinda weird, because he wasn’t even smiling, but Takao supposed that that was Kuroko for you. “I wish that I knew everything, though. It would make life a lot simpler. Basketball, too.” 

“I hear that,” Takao said. 

Kuroko looked like he was about to open his mouth again, but Kise cut him off. 

“So.” Kise leaned in towards him, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “What’s it like dating Midorimacchi? Is it as weird as it seems like it would be?”

Kuroko shot Kise an exasperated look. “Kise-kun, don’t be rude.“

Takao appreciated what Kuroko was trying to do. Under normal circumstances, he didn’t appreciate it when people pried into his personal business. He was more comfortable when things stayed superficial and fun. 

But something about the mood right then- the freedom of having let his biggest secret out of the bag, the surprise that came from not being judged for it (well, at least not judged on the basis of Midorima being a guy), maybe even just the anonymity that came with darkness, who knows- made him actually not mind the idea of sitting and talking about his life for a while. 

“Dating Shin-chan… haha, where to begin?” Except that Takao wasn’t actually having that much trouble figuring out where to begin. “It’s pretty much like you would imagine. We study a lot, and play basketball a lot, and most of our ‘dates’ involve going from store to store trying to find Midorima’s lucky items.”

“Oh gosh! I remember the days.” Kise scrunched up his face. “Well, I guess I only had to do that that one time when Midorimacchi’s lucky item was a pashmina scarf, and he didn’t know what that was so I had to explain it and then somehow we ended up at the mall. I bought a really cute vest that day…” 

As Kise went on, Takao chuckled. He was consistently surprised how somebody who was so intimidating on the court could be such a goober in real life. Although, he had the sneaking suspicion that Kise would never have given him a second glance, much less invited him to his hotel balcony for chocolates and girltalk, if Shuutoku hadn’t beaten his team back during last year’s Winter Cup. Maybe to some people, he was intimidating all the time. 

That kinda seemed like a waste. But whatever, Takao wasn’t there to judge. 

Eventually Kise finished up his reminiscences and returned to his previously scheduled interrogation. “But that’s not what I meant,” he said, and it was almost like an accusation. “Is Midorimacchi a good boyfriend? Does he buy you flowers and stuff?”

Takao snorted. “Seriously? What would I do with _flowers_?”

“Aw, so he doesn’t, then.” Kise rested a well-manicured hand on Takao’s shoulder. “I’m sorry that you’re being neglected, Takaocchi,” he said. His voice was dripping so heavily with earnestness that Takao couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m not being neglected! He’s a good boyfriend. And I think he tries to be romantic. He just…”

“Does it in his own special way?”

“If by that you mean ‘fails miserably’, then yeah, exactly.”

As the two of them shared a laugh, Takao couldn’t help but think that this was kind of nice. However, Kuroko was obviously of a different mind. 

He frowned as he spoke. “Is that why the two of you are fighting, then? Because Midorima-kun isn’t romantic enough?”

Takao tried his best to look puzzled. “Wait, me and Shin-chan are fighting? That’s news to me.”

“Takao-kun.”

Again, Kuroko gave him a look. Again, Takao relented, and admitted that yeah, he and Midorima may not have been on the very best of terms right then. 

“Kurokocchi superpowers,” Kise said, wiggling his fingers around mysteriously. 

Kuroko shook his head. “Takao-kun plainly told us that Midorima-kun was angry at him. Paying attention is hardly a superpower.” He turned to look at Takao. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this, but you and Midorima-kun chose a very poor time to get in a fight. Shuutoku will need to be at full strength to beat Yosen tomorrow. They’re strong this year.”

“Yeah, I know. It's not like we sat down and decided to get in a fight right before the Winter Cup; it just sorta happened."

"But why did it happen? What are you guys fighting about?"

"Whatever it is, I think it's safe to say that it is entirely Midorima-kun's fault."

Takao bit back a smile. "Aw, thanks Kuroko! It's nice to have somebody on my side for once."

"Well, it's not necessarily that I'm on your side," Kuroko said, crushing Takao's dreams with a short, formal sentence. "It's just that Midorima-kun and I have never gotten along. I suppose that as a general rule, no matter what the issue, I have learned to stand on the opposite side that he is on."

"Oh," Takao said. "I guess that I have always gotten the vibe from Shin-chan that the two of you were rivals..."

"No, Kurokocchi is _my_ rival!" Kise cut in to inform him. "Kurokocchi and Midorimacchi... at best, I guess they're like adversaries?"

"I think of us as enemies."

Takao swallowed at the deadpan delivery of this line, but Kise just rolled his eyes. "Kurokocchi doesn't mean that, obviously," he said, shooting the shorter boy a look. "If they really were enemies, then he wouldn't have specifically invited his boyfriend-" and it was so pathetic, but just hearing that word come from somebody else's mouth was enough to make Takao's skin all tingly and warm- "up here to hang out. I think deep down inside, Kurokocchi really respects Midorimacchi. That's why he likes to pick on him so much."

Takao nodded. He understood that urge all too well. 

"But _you_ , Takaocchi-" Kise began. "-you are not off the hook. What happened? Why are you guys fighting?"

Both of the other boys looked at Takao steadily. For the first time, he wasn't sure what he should say next. 

In the end, he decided to just open his mouth and wing it. "Well, Shin-chan and I... I don't know, I guess you could say we're having communication issues?"

"Like you want to talk about something other than basketball strategy and your horoscope every once in a while, but Midorimacchi doesn't let you?"

"No, no," Takao shook his head. "More like, we're having trouble staying on the same page about, like... relationship stuff. You know? Like our boundaries and expectations and..." he let out a breath. "Just that kind of stuff."

Kise cocked his head to the side, his face a picture of confusion. "So what you're trying to tell us is, you wish that Midorimacchi would put out more?”

Takao promptly choked on his own spit, and so was unable to respond for a few minutes. But luckily Kuroko was there to have this back. 

Well, kind of.

"You don't need to put it so bluntly; it's obvious that's what Takao-kun is saying,” Kuroko chided. He looked over at Takao. "I'm sorry to hear that Midorima-kun is not as sultry and promiscuous as you had hoped. That must be a heavy blow for you. You have my deepest sympathy."

Takao groaned and curled in on himself, pressing his forehead into his knees. It was cold enough now that a few flakes of snow could be seen fluttering around in the air, but everything felt hot. Hot and shitty. Was this what being flustered felt like? He felt a sudden wave of guilt for all of the times he had put Midorima and all of his other teammates and friends in this position, because wow. It sucked. “ _Guys,_ " he whined. "That's not even what I said at all; you're twisting my words around. I'm not that shallow."

"You don't have to be embarrassed, Takaocchi," Kise said, resting a friendly hand on Takao's back. "You know, wanting to feel close to people and touch them and screw them- that's not a shallow thing, that's a deep physical need, and it's completely normal for stuff like that to cause problems when two people are dating. Like, take Kasamatsucchi and me. I guess we're kind of different from you and Midorimacchi, because we both like sex a lot, but I used to worry because there was a time, back before he went off to college, that he just wanted it _all the time_. Like a lot more often than I did. And it seriously put some strain on our relationship until I sat him down and had an honest talk with him about-"

Takao had stopped processing Kise's words right around the point when he first mentioned the name of Kaijou's former point guard. "Wait,who the hell is ‘Kasamatsucchi’? Do you mean Kasamatsu Yukio? Are you telling me that you guys are together?"

"Yeah, didn't you know?” Kise looked confused. “I thought everyone knew at this point."

"Kise-kun forgets that most people do not spend all of their waking moments thinking about him, and gossiping," Kuroko explained. And then, to answer Takao's question- “Yes, Kise-kun and Kasamatsu-kun have been together for nearly a year now.”

Takao whistled. “Get out of town! I had no idea.”

“I know, right?” Kise smiled. “I was so certain that he would say no when I asked him out- he always spent so much time yelling at me, you know? But after he retired last year, I just missed him so much that I thought I’d give it a shot. And then the rest is history.”

“Well congrats, that’s great! And wow, it’s really been a while for you guys.” Takao leaned back in his chair, chuckling. Although he would never in a million years tell Kise this (well maybe that was a little extreme- if he explained it in the right way, Kise would probably think that it was hilarious), Takao used to have a sort-of crush on Kasamatsu back in middle school. It hadn’t been anything too serious- the two had never even officially met each other until the previous year- but the fact remained that there had been one winter where Takao had faithfully attended almost all of Kasamatsu’s school’s local games. He had started out by telling himself that it was just because Kasamatsu was an amazing point guard and Takao wanted to pick up some tricks. But eventually he had acknowledged that that was just an excuse and that it was probably a good time to start having a sexuality crisis. 

It was kind of ironic, that the first guy Takao had ever had a crush on had turned out to be gay also. It was even more ironic that, through no fault of his own, Takao would one day find himself sitting around with that guy’s future boyfriend, eating snacks and hearing more than he ever wanted to know about their sex life. 

“Yup! And I really think the key to making a relationship last that long is communication. Like, my main problem back before Kasamatsucchi and I had that first big talk wasn’t _really_ that we were having too much sex. It was just that we did it instead of talking. I wasn’t sure where I stood with him, whether he actually liked me, or whether he just, I don’t know, liked how I looked. Like sometimes I would get all excited about going over to his house to hang out or play basketball or whatever, but then we would just end up in his bed the whole time. It was frustrating.”

Takao felt a familiar surge of guilt start to tug at him at that last part. This story was starting to hit a little close to home. Maybe he’d been right back in middle school, and he and Kasamatsu really _did_ have a lot in common. 

“Things got better after we talked about them, though. All of that time, it turned out that he had been worried about, like…” Kise paused for a moment. It was dark, so Takao couldn’t be entirely sure, but it looked like he was blushing. “Well, I don’t want to say too much.” 

It seemed funny that Kise would have no trouble sharing intimate details about his sex life, but then draw the line at talking about feelings. But Takao supposed that he shouldn’t be surprised. He imagined that a lot of celebrities were weird like that. 

“The bottom line is, I don’t think misunderstandings like that are too uncommon, especially in the beginning of a relationship. Like, how long did you say you and Midorimacchi have been going out?”

Takao counted backwards in his head. “Since last spring, so maybe… ten months, ish?”

Kise’s eyes widened. “Oh wow, that’s a really long time! Sorry, I’d kinda gotten the impression that you two just got together recently.”

Takao shook his head. “Nope, it’s been a while. You’d think that we’d be old pros at the dating thing at this point, but no such luck.”

“Yeah, I guess it kinda gets easier as you go, but it’s never, like, _easy_. You know what I’m talking about.”

Takao gave an emphatic nod.

“But wait.” Kise had a confused look on his face again. “Now that you say that, I don’t understand why you and Midorimacchi are fighting anymore. Like, before, it sounded like you wanted to have sex and he wasn’t ready, but I guess if it’s already been nearly a year, you two are way past that.”

For once, Takao wasn’t sure how to respond. He had never really thought that dating for a year before having sex was that weird. Sure, the wait felt excruciating from his end, but some of his friends with girlfriends had been forced to hold out for a really long time also. Maybe that was supposed to be one of those things that was different when you were gay? He didn’t know. Not for the first time, he wished there was a handbook or something to tell him about this kind of stuff. “Well… I mean, Shin-chan and I…”

Luckily, he only had to spend a few more seconds floundering around in his words before Kuroko came to his rescue. “Just because you and Kasamatsu-kun decided to have sex ten minutes after getting together doesn’t mean that all couples are obligated to do the same,” he said, his voice quietly teasing. “Most people wait.”

“Haha, maybe that’s true…” Kise let out a self-deprecating laugh. “But hey, you’re in no position to judge me! The way you talk about…” his eyes flicked over towards Takao for a moment- “that person, that you like- don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same!”

Huh, Takao thought, a smile touching the edge of his lips. So even a quiet guy like Kuroko (well, at least until this evening Takao had thought that he was quiet. Now he wasn’t so sure) had someone that he secretly liked. He wondered what kind of person the unsuspecting victim was, and if there was any chance that Takao knew them. He resolved to press for more details next time there was a lull in the conversation. 

Or at least that had been his plan initially, before Kuroko replied and blew all of the wind out of his sails.

“The difference is that Kagami-kun is not a disgusting pervert like I am,” Kuroko said, voice calm as ever even when divulging personal information. “And if by some impossible chance we ever did get together, I imagine he would be more restrained than I am, and that he would want to wait for a while.” 

Takao leaned back in his chair again, almost disappointed by how short-lived that mystery had been. And also how, now that he thought about it, it had never been a mystery to begin with. Who else would it have been, other than Kagami?

“But ten months though!” Kise pressed.

“Even if it were ten months I wouldn’t mind. Especially considering that, realistically, Kagami-kun will _never_ notice me in that way…”

Kuroko’s eyes wandered off to the court across the street again, and Takao’s followed them. The game was still in full swing, and even seemed to have picked up a few more players. Murasakibara, who had been on the bench before, had stepped in, and was currently on the receiving end of a valiant attempt by Kaijou’s Hayakawa and that cat guy from Seirin to get past him. They got a shot up, and for a moment it looked like it was going to go in, but the prunette slapped it out of the air at the last second. Despite that, Kagami still gave the cat guy a reassuring slap on the shoulder as they dropped back. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Takao saw Kuroko smile. 

“Kagami Taiga, huh?” Takao said aloud. “So I guess when you guys said you were checking out the competition, you literally meant that you were _checking out_ the-“

Kuroko shot him an exasperated look, and Takao stopped. He could hear Kise trying not to giggle behind him, though. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease you about it. Especially considering my own situation.” Takao said, and Kuroko’s face softened. “I guess I do have it pretty good, huh? Even if me and Shin-chan don’t agree on some stuff, at least we’re still dating. I shouldn’t complain.”

“You can complain about it if you want,” Kuroko said. “It’s a nice change of pace from only having Kise-kun’s relationship drama to listen to.”

Instead of being offended by Kuroko’s words, Kise nodded vigorously. “I agree. You know, I never thought that I would say this, but hearing about you and Midorimacchi’s relationship is really helping to reaffirm my faith in pure love. I mean, _ten whole months_.” He shook his head in wonder. 

“I mean, it’s not like we’re _trying_ to be ‘pure’! We’ll do it eventually. Shin-chan just… well, I don’t know. It seems like he really wants to do it, but then he keeps saying he needs to prepare more.”

Kise snorted. “What does he think he needs to prepare for? It’s sex, not rocket science.” 

“I know, right? Seriously, there are some times that I really don’t understand that guy.”

“Wait, so does that mean that there are times when you _do_ understand him?”

“I wonder…” Kuroko, who had gone quiet beside them, a pensive frown on his face, interjected. He looked over at Kise. “Do you remember back during middle school, when Midorima-kun’s sister was hospitalized?”

Takao spun around to look at him so quickly that he could have sworn he felt his neck snap. “Chiyako-chan?” he said. “What happened to her? Why was she in the hospital?”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that! Didn’t she have like a brain tumor or something?”

“It was an arteriovenous malformation,” Kuroko recalled. “Everything turned out fine in the end, but she did have a complicated course of treatment. Altogether, she was in the hospital for more than a month.”

“Oh, wow.” Takao said, sitting back in his seat. He racked his brain, trying to remember if Midorima had ever mentioned this, but came up with nothing. “That’s so scary. I’m glad that she was okay.”

“It was scary. But despite that, Midorima-kun initially refused to go visit her at the hospital.” 

Kuroko looked over at Takao, as if to gauge his reaction. Takao wished him luck with that. Because personally, he had no idea what his reaction was supposed to be.

He guessed that he felt confused more than anything. Because, that didn’t sound like Midorima at all. His boyfriend adored his little sister. Nothing could be more obvious. So how could it be possible that Midorima, who had never once missed one of Chiyako’s piano recitals or school plays, who sometimes went to even greater pains to procure her lucky item for the day than he did to find his own, could have left her alone during such a stressful time? That just didn’t seem right.

“It was clear that he wanted to go see her,” Kuroko continued. “He brought her up constantly. He seemed stressed, and his play suffered. But when I asked him why he didn’t just go and visit, he just said that he wasn’t ready. That he needed to prepare more.”

Takao had been wondering why Kuroko would bring up such a depressing story right then. Now he was starting to understand. 

“He also started going home a different way after practice. This piqued Akashi-kun’s interest- I’m not sure how much Midorima-kun talks about this, but the two of them used to be good friends. And so one night after practice Akashi-kun followed him, to see where he went.”

Takao shuffled in his seat. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know where Midorima had been going. But it sounded important.

“He followed him to the science library of a university campus that was near Teiko. As soon as Midorima-kun arrived there, he proceeded directly to some of the basement, where Akashi-kun lost track of him for a while. By the time Akashi-kun found where he was working, he’d accumulated a large stack of old issues of medical journals, and was reading them intently.”

“What a nerd,” Takao couldn’t help but comment fondly.

Kuroko nodded. “Akashi-kun was able to get the whole story from him. It turned out that Midorima had been coming to that library every night, as well as several other libraries in the area, and attempting to systematically review all of the existing literature on Chiyako-chan’s condition. He felt strongly that, before he set foot in the hospital, he needed to know exactly what was happening and what should be done about it. Otherwise, he would be letting his sister down.”

Takao frowned. “He… what? But that makes no sense.” 

“Exactly.” Kuroko nodded. “That was what Akashi-kun said, and Midorima-kun himself agreed. But even though Midorima-kun knew, intellectually, that he didn’t need to be an expert in neurovascular disease simply to visit a sick family member in the hospital, he still couldn’t stop himself from reading about it. And no matter how much he read about it, he still couldn’t get himself to go to the hospital with his parents.”

Takao thought about it for a moment. It was a weird story, kind of sad, kind of a lot to take in. But knowing Midorima like he did, he couldn’t pretend that the tune wasn’t familiar. “Yeah, that… that sounds like Shin-chan.” He laughed weakly. “So what did he do? He got over it somehow, right?” Takao truly hoped that he had. Otherwise, that probably didn’t bode well for Midorima ever getting over whatever mental hurdle he was trying to scale in their current relationship. 

Kuroko shrugged. “Well, things went on like that for a few days longer. Akashi-kun told him to go visit his sister, and although Midorima-kun promised that he would, but he kept hesitating. This went on for a while.”

“And so eventually the team kidnapped him and brought him to the hospital by force! And everything resolved itself and Midorimacchi visited his sister every day from then on and that was the end of that story.”

So wrapped up had he been in Kuroko’s account, Takao had almost forgotten that Kise was still with them. Hearing him speak now surprised a laugh out of Takao. “Hah! Well, I guess that’s as good a solution as any.”

Kuroko, on the other hand, looked annoyed. “I wouldn’t have called that a _solution_ ,” he said, aiming a glare at Kise. “It would have been better if Midorima-kun had gotten over it on his own, so that he wouldn’t keep running into the same problems in the future. I told you that at the time.”

Kise just smiled and shrugged off Kuroko’s words. “Well, my idea worked, didn’t it? At least his little sister seemed really grateful.” 

“Yes, things turned out better for Chiyako-chan, but now Takao-kun is suffering the consequences.”

Takao smiled. “It’s okay, it’s good for people to suffer a little every once in a while. And I’m glad it’s me rather than Chiyako-chan.”

“Yes, I suppose she’s already suffered enough having to live with Midorima-kun.”

“So harsh!” Kise laughed. 

A quiet chime sounded, and Kuroko looked down at his phone, making sure not to disturb his slumbering dog as he pulled it out of his pocket. He looked at the screen for a moment, and then with a little “excuse me”, began to type.

Kise’s amber eyes were huge as he took this all in. “Hey, what is this? You never respond that fast when I text you! Is it some kind of emergency? Is your grandma okay?”

“Everything’s fine. My grandmother is fine.” Kuroko didn’t look up from the screen as he responded. 

“Who the heck was that then? I thought I was the only one who texted you, and I’m right here…”

Takao had a hunch that he knew who it was. It may have just been a trick of the light (or rather a trick of the dark), but right now, as a little swooping noise indicated that another text had come while the messenger was still open, he thought he had seen a little smile flick across Kuroko’s lips. Just for an instant and then it was gone, but still. It was the first time that he had seen the guy make a face like that. 

Maneuvering awkwardly around the dog that was still in his lap, Kuroko reached out and showed Kise the screen of his phone. Takao, who was sitting right next to him, leaned in to read it as well. 

What Takao saw confirmed his suspicions. 

The message at the top of the screen was from Kagami Taiga. It read: “ _Hey. You’re gunna get frostbite just sitting over there, you should come over and play with us. Tell whoever that is with you to come too”_

Kuroko had typed back: “ _We might take you up on that, let me ask. Although, I’m surprised that you noticed us from all the way over there.”_

To which Kagami responded: _“Don’t be stupid. I always notice you”_

When Kise finished reading that, he jumped out of his chair and gave a little squeal of excitement. 

“Oh my gosh, that so cute! Way too cute. I’m going to die.”

“There’s no need to be dramatic,” Kuroko said. 

“I’m not being dramatic, I’m just happy!” Kise threw an arm around Kuroko, nearly knocking him to the ground. Kuroko’s dog awoke at that point, and looked in all directions with an expression of drowsy confusion. “How can you still think he doesn’t like you when he says things like that, huh? I keep telling you, you should just confess!”

“He was just inviting me to play basketball with him. I wouldn’t read too much into things.” Kuroko looked over at Takao. “Speaking of which, Kagami was right. It is getting a bit too cold to just sit be sitting here doing nothing. Do you want to go play?”

“I want to play!” Kise said. 

“Yes, I know you do. Takao-kun?”

Takao shook his head. “Nah, I think I’d better be heading back. We’ve got a curfew, and I don’t even want to know what’ll happen to me if I’m late…”

The group said their goodbyes, and, after a final promise that everything discussed there that night would be kept in a “cone of silence”, headed outside. Takao waved bye to Kuroko and Kise, and then turned back to focus on the sidewalk that would take him home. It was cold enough to make him shiver, and the wind, which had been mild before, had started whipping against him like a flail. With a smile on his face and a new sort of calmness settling on his mind, Takao decided to race it back to the hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, this chapter was one of the first scenes I imagined when I was coming up with ideas for this fic. I guess that explains why I included it even though it's kinda pointless and doesn't add much to the main story...
> 
> Anyways, thanks so much for sticking with me despite the slow updates! Feedback is greatly appreciated as always.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha it has been like 3 years why am I still working on this fic? 
> 
> The road so far (for anybody who is subscribed to this and has completely forgotten what is going on with the plot): Takao and Midorima have been dating for like a year, the romantic build is very slow, I'm following the Shuutoku epilogue-verse where most of their team this year is made of the canon team's little siblings, their families and stuff have also been prominently featured, and Midorima and Takao recently got into a sort-of fight essentially because Takao wasn't sure whether he was pressuring Midorima into sex. It is now the end of the first day of the Winter Cup, Shuutoku is determined to beat Rakuzan, and Takao just had a long, meandering conversation on a hotel balcony with Kise and Kuroko about their relationships.

It almost seemed ridiculous, thinking back on how much trouble Takao had gone through earlier that day while looking for the room that Midorima was staying in. Because, as soon as he walked through the door to the hotel upon returning from his run, it was as if there were a stripe of airfield landing lights directing him straight to it. 

A stripe of airfield landing lights that happened to come in the shape of, well, a pair of tall teenagers with buzz cuts and really, intimidatingly angry expressions on their faces. Takao just watched and wiped the sweat from his brow as these angry expressions turned into angry words. 

“Where the fuck is that fucking little brother of yours? Let me at that little punk. I’ll kill him, you know? I will murder him. The bonds of our friendship will not hold me back from taking hold of your little brother, and murdering him. I hope that you realize that Kimura.”

A deeper voice cut in. “Hey, if the rumors I’ve been hearing are true, I’ll help you do it. But we’ve got to give him a chance to explain himself first. There could be a rational explanation for all of this.”

“Rational explanation my ass. He’s a rat, you know? The timing is just too perfect. He specifically waited until the two of us had moved on to college and were out of the house most of the time, you know, and then he made a move on Tae.” Ootsubo shook his head. “No two ways around it, the guy’s a real… a real snake in the grass.”

“Our Kazuo? Nah, he’s not that crafty. And besides, being a little too eager to get a girlfriend isn’t a crime; if it were, you and I would be at the top of the Japan’s Most Wanted list.”

“It’s a crime when the girl is my little sister,” Ootsubo spat. He looked down at his phone. “Great, I’ve got the room number now. I’ll text it on to Miyaji if he decides to come, but for right now let’s head up.”

“Yeah. It’s time for Kazuo to stand trial for his crimes.”

The two of them strode with a purpose bordering on murderous intent over to the elevator. Takao looked from their retreating backs, to the elevators, to the receptionist sitting behind the check-in desk, who must certainly have overheard that whole shouted conversation about how they had been intending to rain violence and death down upon one of her hotel’s valued customers. But the woman didn’t so much as look up.

Takao sighed. He supposed that he would have to deal with the situation on his own. The things he did for this team…

He trotted towards the elevator, in the direction of the older boys. 

“Hey guys. What’s up?” 

He was hoping that keeping things light and casual might help to de-escalate the situation. He was right, in a way. When Ootsubo responded, it was in a voice that was a lot more pleasant than the one he had been using before, as well as a few decibels quieter. This change in tone just made it all the more jarring when the content of his words remained exactly the same. 

“Not much. We’re just headed up to Kimura’s bro’s room, he’s got a date with death scheduled for right about now.”

“Cool, cool,” Takao said, nodding his head. “It might be a little tough to beat Yosen tomorrow if he’s too dead to play, but we can work around that. Now, why is it again that he’s got to die?”

“We heard some rumors today that he might be dating Ootsubo’s little sister. You remember Tae-chan, right? Do you know if there’s any truth to that?”

Takao frowned, wondering how he could break it to them delicately. “Well, yeah, they’re dating. But-“

“That settles it then. The day that Kazuo defiled Tae was the day his fate was sealed,” Ootsubo clarified, nodding matter-of-factly. “I hope his affairs are in order.”

The elevator dinged, and the three of them piled in. Ootsubo mashed the button for the sixth floor, and away they went. 

“I don’t know if I would say that he’s defiled her, though,” Takao pointed out. “Kimura’s just not that kind of guy. From what I hear, he treats her well. You know, takes her on dates, buys her parfaits whenever she wants them… sometimes they even play basketball. Just normal stuff.”

The elder Ootsubo and Kimura siblings exchanged a grim look. “They’re already at the parfait stage.”

“It’s even worse than we thought.”

What the “parfait stage” was, Takao had no idea. Maybe it was some straight people thing that he’d never needed to learn about before. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. Silently sending out an apology to the younger Kimura for whatever unknown trouble he had just gotten him into, Takao resolved not to speak any further. 

But the damage had already been done. As soon as the elevator made it to the floor that Kimura’s room was on, the two older boys stormed onto the scene, their faces hard and set, murder glinting in their dark eyes.

Takao followed them to the other second years’ room, trailing closely enough that he couldn’t miss any of the drama but at enough of a distance that he would be protected in case things got messy. 

And oh, did they get messy. 

The door to the room was already open a crack, the sounds of a team of rowdy boys watching TV and goofing off and blaring rap beats all at once wafting muffled into the hall. It sounded fun. Takao wished again that he could have joined them earlier, before it all turned into a bloodbath. 

Speaking of which. The elder Kimura was now literally _kicking_ the door to the hotel room in the rest of the way. With a thunderous crash, it struck against the inner wall of the room.

“Oh hey bro! Hey Ootsubo! Glad you could make it-“

“Kimura fucking Kazuo! What the hell do you think you are doing with my sister, you sick pervert!”

“What do you mean, I’m not doing anything-”

“Stop with the bullshit and tell me!”

As Ootsubo continued to berate the confused and terrified-looking Kazuo, Takao took his chance to slip in through the door behind him. He made a beeline to where another second-year friend of his was standing in an out-of-the-way corner. 

His friend was less than impressed with the situation unfolding in front of him. “Huh. I guess the senpai did make it after all. It’s a shame, I had hoped that they would bring beer,” he said. 

Takao chuckled. “That’s it, Imai? No surprise, no concern for Kimura’s wellbeing? Just beer? ” 

Imai shrugged. “What’s the point of having college friends if they don’t bring alcohol to your parties?”

“There’s probably some truth to that.” Takao looked over at the category-five force argument that was raging in the other part of the room “Tonight’s a bad night to drink, though. We should wait to party until we’ve won the tournament.”

His friend rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Takao? You know as well as I do that we’re going home tomorrow. If Yosen doesn’t eliminate us, then Rakuzan will. And since that’s the case, why shouldn’t we cut loose a little tonight? At least those of us on the second string…” 

Takao didn’t have a good answer to that. So he plastered a smile on his face and changed the subject. “Speaking of having a good time, any idea where Shin-chan is? I haven’t seen him since dinner.”

“He grabbed his textbooks and left a little while back, I think he was going to see if he could hang out in a conference room or something downstairs.” Imai smirked. “He was asking about you earlier, by the way. Trying to figure out where your room was. We didn’t tell him though. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.”

Takao frowned. He didn’t know what Imai was trying to imply. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know. But his stupid compulsion to never let a train of conversation drop got the better of him in the end. “Why would I mind if he knows which room I’m in? He’s my friend.”

“Well, yeah,” Imai said. “But even if you guys are friends… I imagine it’s hard to be around him 24/7, right?”

Takao continued to be confused. “No, not particularly.”

Imai hmmed. “Well, at least that’s how the captain made it sound when we asked if we could switch things around to have you room with us. Would you believe that he put _Kobayashi_ as the fourth person in Kimura, Midorima, and my room? Ridiculous.” He shook his head. “But Miyaji said that you wouldn’t want to switch. That you needed some time away from Midorima to focus or whatever.”

“Well that’s interesting, because I’m pretty sure I never told Miyaji anything like that.” 

Was this even real life right now? It had been annoying enough not being able to find Midorima’s room earlier that night, but he had never suspected that there had actually been some nefarious _plot_ in place to keep them away from each other. He knew Miyaji didn’t like Midorima, but this was getting kind of petty. 

Imai shrugged. “That’s just what I heard.”

The argument in front of them had progressed. Ootsubo had found some kind of decorative basketball-patterned cloth thing tied to Kazuo’s sports bag, and he had torn it off violently in response. Now, he was shouting about how he couldn’t believe that he and Tae had already made it to the “making lucky pouches and shit for each other before important events stage”, and that it was even worse than the parfait stage, and how did Kazuo even sleep at night under the weight of his sins? 

Kazuo, eyes wide with terror, certainly looked like he wouldn’t sleep a wink during the upcoming night. 

Obviously, this state of affairs would not do. Heartless degenerate or no, Kazuo was still a starter on their team, and it was still the biggest tournament of the year. It was as if nobody here even _wanted_ to beat Yosen, Takao thought with frustration.

Once again, Takao would have to intervene. 

He cleared his throat. “You know, Imai, that’s a good point,” he said, speaking loudly and clearly enough that he was sure that the senpai would hear it even on the other side of the room. “It’s weird that Kimura and Ootsubo are so mad when this whole situation is such a great opportunity for them. Because, when you think about it, if Tae-chan and Kazuo stay together and end up getting married and stuff, wouldn’t that make the two of them brothers-in-law in the future? I would have thought they’d be into that.”

When Kimura and Ootsubo had first noticed that Takao had been interrupting them and looked over his way, their faces had been stony with anger. However, as they listened to him talk, their expressions began to change from angry, to thoughtful, and then to cautiously excited. 

Ootsubo looked at Kimura. “Bro?”

Kimura looked right back him, eyes shining with emotion. “Bro…”

Takao watched this transformation with no small amount of self-satisfaction. He had no illusions that this would be the end of the fight that evening- Kimura and Ootsubo had been majorly pissed off before, and he doubted that the full force of their anger would wane so quickly. But he hoped that maybe he had helped Kazuo a little bit. At least enough that he would be alive and more or less capable of playing the next day when they faced Yosen. 

Next to him, Imai snorted. When he spoke to Takao next, it was in a quiet voice, carefully pitched so that the senpai, still lost in their own little bubble of quiet bro-hood, couldn’t hear it. “Wow. So moving. It’s almost as if you weren’t the person on the team who’s given Kimura the single most amount of shit for dating Tae-chan.”

He had a point there, Takao admitted with a chuckle. “Hey, I only give him shit because he’s my buddy. Kimura knows that.”

“You’re shitty because you care,” Imai clarified. 

“Yup!” 

Takao looked down at his watch. It was a little after ten. He knew from experience that, since it was the night before a game, Midorima would want to be in bed with the lights out (or, in the case of away games, with his black sleeping mask over his face and the sounds of a natural rainforest or whatever playing in his headphones to block out his noisy roommates’ carryings-on) by eleven. He didn’t have too much time, then, to change out of his running clothes and catch his boyfriend on his own before bed. He would need to leave now.

Clapping Imai on the shoulder, he murmured a quick goodbye and headed out of the room. 

 

.

 

Takao made it back up to his hotel room to find it empty. That was a blessing- pressed for time as he was, it was nice not to have the pressure of needing to speak to a bunch of the third years (or even worse, to listen to them agonize even more about that physics problem set from earlier). As quickly as possible, he took off his dirty clothes and threw them in the general direction of his bag, taking just a minute to grab a clean towel before he hopped into the shower. 

The hot water felt almost too good against the skin. Takao had barely registered it earlier since he’d been so busy, but he was _cold_. It had been cold outside during his run, and even colder inside the hotel now that all of his sweat had been allowed to cool and settle like a coat of salty frost on all of his surfaces. To say nothing of all the aches and pains that were just starting to make themselves known.

Maybe he had gone a little too hard that evening, Takao mused, crouching down to massage his ankle. A moan escaped him as he dug his fingers in- this was the same ankle that had been low-key hurting him for the past few seasons, but that evening the pain had escalated enough to catch him off-guard. 

Carefully, he probed the area with his fingers, grunting a little as he did so. He determined that it was swollen. Just a touch, almost not enough to be noticeable to the naked eye, but once he started pressing he could feel that the joint was warm and had that unmistakeable gelatinous texture that never foreboded anything good. Should he maybe be icing the area rather than hanging out in a hot shower? Try as he might, Takao could never remember the difference between when you should use heat and when you should use ice… 

Eventually he decided that heat was the right way to go (a conclusion that he was sure had nothing to do with him simply being too lazy to figure out where the ice machine on this floor was) and finished up showering.

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, warm and damp and with a towel around his waist, he found that Miyaji had returned. Presumably from that same meeting with the coach that he had been in before Takao went out to run- Takao didn’t think that he had seen him in the room that everyone else had been congregating in downstairs. 

“Oh. Hey captain.” Takao greeted him distractedly as he rummaged around in his bag to pull out some fresh clothes. At this point nothing was really “fresh” anymore, considering that he’d been throwing most of his dirty clothes right back in the same bag as the clean ones in a half-assed attempt to keep the room uncluttered. But oh well. At least he was trying. “I’m not late for curfew for once. Got back from my run just in time.”

“Hey _Takao_ ,” Miyaji responded, his voice already sharp. Takao wondered what he had done to set the captain off this time. He’d only been in the room for, like, ten seconds. 

Of course, Miyaji was never the type to shy away from making his concerns known. “The walls are fucking paper thin here. So next time you want to jack off in the shower, would you try to keep it down?”

Takao blinked, confused, and looked up from the pair of boxers that he was shaking out. “I wasn’t jacking off in the shower though.”

Miyaji just raised an eyebrow at him. Takao mirrored him ridiculously, raising both his eyebrows and wiggling them around. 

“I’m serious!” Takao repeated, once Miyaji had rolled his eyes and then returned his face to its grumpy normal self. “I wouldn’t do that in a shower I was sharing with a bunch of other people, that’s gross.”

“Then what was with all that moaning and shit before?”

Oh. Now Takao got it. With a chuckle, he went back to picking out clothes. “Oh _that._ That was just my ankle. It got kind of messed up again today, I was rubbing it down.”

“And you had to moan like a fucking porn star while doing it?” 

Takao shrugged. 

Suddenly, Miyaji stiffened, his face darkening. “And wait, exactly when did your ankle get hurt today? Don’t tell me it was way back during the first game when you fell.”

“Um, I guess it must have been? I didn’t notice it that much at the time, but-“

“God fucking damn it Takao.” The captain raked a hand through his spiky blonde hair. “Didn’t you think that you should have, I don’t know, _told somebody_ about it? Tried to sit out a while, rather than continuing to play against weak-ass teams that we didn’t even really need you in the game for all day?”

“I didn’t realize-“

“And then, after all of that’s over and we’re back resting at the hotel, do you do a single thing to take care of yourself _then_? No, you go out for a fucking hour-long run. A _run._ ”

Miyaji attempted to look pointedly in Takao’s direction again, but the effect was ruined when the sight of Takao stepping into his boxers forced him to quickly avert his eyes. “Why the _fuck_ would you go running, during the biggest tournament of the year, when you know that your ankle’s already injured? What the hell was going on in your brain?”

He had a point there, Takao had to concede. “I mean… I didn’t think that my ankle was that bad until just now… and even now it’s not, like, _bad_ bad-” 

Miyaji strode over to Takao’s side of the room. Instinctively, the shorter boy flinched. But instead of getting in his face or miraculously producing some large species of fruit to use as a weapon against him, the captain just pointed at the bed. “Sit down. I’m taking a look at it.”

Takao had no choice but to obey. Dropping the T-shirt that he’d been preparing to put on next back on top of his weekend bag, he sat down on the edge of the bed. The captain knelt down on the floor in front of him. 

“Your left ankle?”

“Yeah.”

Takao tensed up preemptively as Miyaji reached for his leg. He’d been on the receiving end of various orthopedic-type evaluations before during his years as an athlete, enough of them to learn that they, in general, hurt like a motherfucker. But to his surprise, his captain’s hands were gentle. 

Miyaji applied slow pressure to his ankle, evaluating for swelling, and then guided the joint through its full range of motion. “Does any of this hurt in particular?” 

Takao shook his head. “I mean, it all kinda hurts. But it’s more of a sore feeling. There’s nothing that’s, like, sharp.”

“Have you at least been icing it?”

“Ah… no.” Knowing that this answer wasn’t going to fly with the captain, Takao hurriedly kept talking. “I was just about to wrap it up, though. I’m meeting up with Midorima in a sec, I know he brought some of that-“

Miyaji’s fingers tightened abruptly around Takao’s ankle, and he was forced to abandon the rest of that sentence in favor of a (frankly embarrassing) squeal of pain. To Takao’s relief, the captain let go of him a second later.

“No. Stay here,” the older boy ordered, rising to his feet. “I’ll go get some ice. And put some clothes on while I’m gone!” 

He turned on the spot and headed for the door. 

“Um, thanks,” Takao said. Miyaji was already gone by the time he got the words out though.

.

 

Takao had to admit that his ankle felt better after Miyaji was done tending to it. Not only had the captain brought a stack of ice packs from their supply kit, but he’d also managed to dig up an ankle brace from somewhere. Sure, it looked old and beat up, and Takao didn’t even want to think about where it had come from or how many other sweaty high school boys’ feet had been in it before his. But all the same. He felt more secure having it on. Especially considering how much higher the stakes would be for the matches the next day. 

Miyaji had also suggested (well, suggested, commanded- Takao wasn’t too interested in going into the semantics of things) that Takao stay in the room for a while and keep his leg elevated. However, his ability to enforce this decree had been substantially compromised by the arrival of the elder Miyaji at their door. His brother was in a state of near-apoplectic rage, waving his cell phone around and demanding to know how the Shuutoku basketball club had devolved into such a hotbed of depravity under just a few months of the younger Miyaji’s leadership. Against his will, the captain was dragged out the door and downstairs, leaving Takao to his own devices. 

There was probably still time to go visit Midorima tonight. At a few minutes before eleven o’ clock, it was a little bit on the late end of things- on a typical night, Midorima would already have been heading to bed by this time. However, since it was pretty clear that the alumni drama that had overtaken the other second years’ room before had not died down yet, Takao had a hunch that his boyfriend would still be holed up somewhere studying. 

Exactly where Midorima had chosen to do this was anyone’s guess. Although, on his way into the hotel, Takao had taken note of a small hallway that jutted out from the far side of the lobby, its walls lined intermittently by frosted glass doors. If Midorima had been looking for a conference room, as Imai had suggested, that hallway had probably been the first place that he had looked. 

Sure enough, when Takao finally arrived on the ground floor and made his way over to the small hallway, he found that the first door on the right was propped open. He could see a lone person sittingat the table inside. A person crouched forward awkwardly on a chair that was too low for their stature. A person whose hair was a distinctive green.

Takao’s arteries warmed up at the sight of him. There was no good reason for this feeling, he acknowledged. It wasn’t like Midorima was doing anything special. He was just sitting there writing, spine ramrod-straight, his characteristic study-scowl cutting deep lines into his face. Nonetheless, Takao couldn’t help but think it was cute. 

But he’d already spent too much time standing outside the door like a creeper. So, plastering his typical broad mischievous smile over the little fond one that had been there before, Takao burst into the room.

“Yo, Shin-chan!”

Midorima raised his head to look at him for a moment. And then he returned his attention to his books. “Takao. I was wondering whether you would make an appearance.” 

There was a chilly edge to his voice that almost made Takao’s smile slip. He decided not to let himself get put out by it, though. He was of the persuasion that a lot of the time, just pretending that nothing was wrong was a pretty big step in the direction of making things right again. He shouldn’t have to still be in a fight if he didn’t want to be. 

“Aw, don’t tell me that you _missed_ me, Shin-chan,” he said, pulling up a chair across the table from his boyfriend. Takao had brought his own school bag as well, from which he now drew a stack of English flashcards that he had no intention of actually studying.

“On the contrary. I’ve been very productive this afternoon.”

Takao grinned. “Nobody ever said that those two things were mutually exclusive. I bet you’re always more productive when I’m not around.”

“That’s not something that you should take pride in.”

“Of course I take pride in it! It means that I’m doing my job right, if you miss me so much that you had to do all this work just to take your mind off of it.”

Midorima sighed and looked up from his book, actually making eye contact with Takao this time. “Why are you here, Takao? Is there something that you need?”

“I just want to study with you.”

“If you were truly planning to study, you would have already begun to do so.”

Takao shrugged. “Okay then. Maybe I just want to be with you.” He leaned in over the table, drawing closer to his boyfriend. “Is that what you were wanting me to say, Shin-chan?”

Drawing his lips tight, as if trying to push the embarrassment off of his face through sheer physical force, Midorima looked back down at his work. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How is it ridiculous if it’s the truth?” Takao wondered. 

“Somehow the truth always sounds ridiculous when you say it.”

“Doesn’t make it any less true though.” Takao chuckled and leaned back again, extending his arms out to initiate a leisurely full-body stretch. He could tell that Midorima was watching him out of the corner of his eye, following the movement of his arms, his shoulders, his chest. Takao smiled and flexed his muscles ever so slightly. 

Midorima bit his lip. Takao smirked victoriously. 

For what must have been the ten-thousandth time, he throbbed with another memory he had involving Midorima’s lips- specifically, of those lips kissed red and puffy, closing around Takao while intense green eyes looked up at him from between Takao’s legs. All things considered this could not be classified as a _good_ memory, and so it killed Takao, how it kept springing back up in his mind each time he tried to quash it down. How each time he remembered it, Midorima looked more irresistible than ever before, and how that warm wet pressure around Takao felt even more perfect, more right. 

Takao didn’t regret how he had handled the situation. Not exactly, at least. Not in the way that he probably _would_ have regretted it if he had allowed Midorima to keep going, that night. But that knowledge couldn’t stop him from fantasizing about how things would have been if he’d let himself enjoy the pleasure for a little longer.

He sighed to himself, letting himself slump forward onto the table. Midorima’s mouth was so _great_. It was maybe one of the greatest things about him, other than his brain and his heart and his emerald eyes and his miraculous shooting hand and, well, in the pining state of mind that Takao was in, he was having trouble coming up with anything that wasn’t great about his boyfriend. But sappy as it was, the thing that Takao wanted most from Midorima’s mouth right then wasn’t another surprise blowjob. It was just a few words. Any words really, but most especially the kind of words that would indicate that he had forgiven Takao and that their fight was over. 

Takao had tried to reach out and fix things between him and Midorima over the past week. It had been difficult to find a good opportunity- the whole team had been in intensive practice more or less all day every day, which left the two of them little time alone together to talk. And the little time that they had spent together, like in the mornings in the rickshaw on their commute to school, Midorima had brushed aside any attempt he had made to broach the topic. Some things were better discussed in private, his boyfriend had said. 

Takao looked around. The room they were currently in was empty aside from Midorima and himself, and quiet enough that he could hear the sounds of the electric heater in the corner loud and clear. The hallway outside was equally deserted, and it was approaching midnight. You couldn’t get much more private than that.

Channeling confidence, Takao stood up, walked over to the cracked-open door, and closed it. Midorima pretended not to pay any heed to his actions, but Takao could feel him following his motions out of the corner of his eye.

“Shin-chan,” he said quietly as he walked back over to his boyfriend. Takao had been sitting in the chair across from him before. This time, he chose one directly to his right side, and leaned in as he spoke. “Are you still mad at me?”

For as much as Takao liked to tease, he appreciated the value of being direct sometimes. 

Midorima wet his lips. His book remained open in front of him, and he had finally given up on pretending to study from it. But still his boyfriend was unable to meet his eyes. Instead, he stared straight ahead, his gaze fixed on some generic nautical landscape that was hanging on the conference room wall. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was never mad at you.”

“Shin-chan. Be serious.”

“This isn’t the place-“

“Look at me.” 

Midorima hesitated, and for a moment Takao doubted himself. Maybe it was wrong to force the issue. Sure, he himself felt like their fight was stupid and pointless and had dragged on for more than long enough, but maybe that wasn’t how Midorima saw it. Midorima was the one that had put himself out there and been rejected, Takao reminded himself. Even though Takao had tried to make it clear that not letting Midorima touch him anymore was in no way supposed to imply that he was no longer attracted to him, or that he loved him any less, he could see how his boyfriend could have trouble believing that. He could understand how maybe, where Takao was just feeling frustrated again, Midorima might be feeling hurt. 

But then Midorima looked over at him, and Takao could see that there was no pain in his eyes. Instead, there was just a wistful expression, one that was tired, and longing. It was probably more or less the same kind of thing that Midorima was seeing reflected on Takao’s own face right then. 

“Shin-chan,” Takao said.

Somehow that was enough. Enough to get him to open his mouth and actually talk, for the first time in weeks, rather than simply to defer.

“You were right before. I did miss you,” Midorima said simply. “I truly regretted having left things as we did, last time, in your room. You didn’t deserve that, you were only trying to… to be gentle, to me. To take care of me.”

In a way, it was gratifying to hear his boyfriend acknowledge that. Pulling away from Midorima back then had been one of the hardest things Takao had ever had to do (okay well sure, that was an exaggeration, but it had certainly _felt_ that way at the time), and he was happy that his efforts had not gone unnoticed. But at the same time, the hint of self-recrimination in Midorima’s voice bothered him. 

“There’s nothing to regret, Shin-chan,” Takao murmured, reaching over and laying a cautious hand on Midorima’s leg. Meeting none of the resistance that such a blatant PDA would ordinarily come up against, he set that hand into motion, stroking up and down his boyfriend’s thigh in what he hoped was a soothing fashion. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Not a thing. Knowing that you wanted to do that kind of stuff for me- it felt really good, you know? It was really, really hot. I would not be a man if I hadn’t felt flattered.”

“You didn’t believe that I wanted to do it, though,” Midorima pointed out. “That was the whole problem.”

“Oh come on, that’s not what I said.”

“That was precisely what you said.”

Takao’s hand stilled, and instead of stroking his boyfriend, he found him clutching at him instead. “Shin-chan-“

But Midorima wasn’t done speaking yet. “I know that… that I am perhaps atypical, as far as sex is concerned. My pacing is off. You didn’t have to tell me that, in order for me to know it. But _you_ should know that I never once have initiated anything that I didn’t want to do.”

“I know, I know,” Takao said. “I’m sorry if it sounded like I was doubting you or-”

“Every time that I’ve touched you, it has been because I wanted to do it,” Midorima continued. “It has been because I’ve looked at you, and thought you were attractive, and enticing, and I couldn’t keep away.”

Takao could feel a blush settling hot over his face, a blush that was just as painfully obvious at the one that his boyfriend was now sporting. “That’s… Shin-chan…” he managed to choke out. “Huh, I guess that means that you _do_ know how I feel sometimes…”

And what a fucking ridiculous thing that was to say right then. But Midorima let out a quiet laugh all the same, and gave Takao’s hand a squeeze. “I’m glad that we’re on the same page.” 

After that, the quiet of the room grew less uncomfortable. Takao wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if they had resolved anything. He could still sense the problems facing their relationship, all of Takao’s deficits in self-control and Midorima’s issues with intimacy and both of their regrettably similar inabilities to communicate their feelings in an understandable and timely fashion. These felt like tangible objects marring the road ahead of them, sunning themselves like alligators in their path. 

But Midorima was holding his hand, and apparently the two of them were on the same page, and not fighting anymore, and so Takao figured that was good enough for right then.

 

.

 

They studied for a little while longer. _Really_ studied, that was, as opposed to just having their books open on the table for show while their real lives carried on far away from the pages. Takao was amazed how much easier it felt to focus on his notes when everything was right between himself and Midorima. Not that he had been slacking over the past week that the two of them had been fighting, of course- even with the Winter Cup approaching, Takao’s teachers (and, more importantly, his mother) had made it clear that his athletic obligations would not excuse poor performance in his classes. 

However, Takao believed that he retained more information in that 30-minute study session in the hotel conference room than the sum total of all of his after-practice studies during the previous week. There was really something to be said for having a mind at ease. 

At precisely 11:30, Midorima looked up from his book. “It’s time for bed. We have an early morning tomorrow.”

Takao nodded his agreement, his attention mostly absorbed in some calculations he was performing for chemistry. 

“Kimura and the upperclassmen were still carrying on up in my room just before you came here, correct?”

“Yeah.”

Midorima pulled his phone out of his pocket and started to type on it. Ordinarily, such a quotidian action wouldn’t even have registered with Takao, but since it was Midorima’s fingers tapping away at Midorima’s phone, Takao had to take note. Because oddly enough, he couldn’t remember whether Midorima had ever texted anyone other than Takao himself. His boyfriend was a traditional guy, so when it came time to contact somebody, he generally preferred to do it in face or with a spoken telephone conversation. As far as Takao knew, it had been his job and his job alone to drag Midorima kicking an screaming into the twenty-first century.

“Are you texting someone?”

Midorima looked up. “Yes. I’m asking Kimura whether things have quieted down upstairs.”

“Oh.” Takao wasn’t sure what to do with the little bubble of jealousy that floated up through him on hearing Kimura’s name. So as usual, he just made dumb jokes until his feelings went away. “Is he texting back? Not to freak you out or anything, but Kimura senior and Ootsubo seemed pretty hell-bent on murdering him a little while ago. I wonder if he’s okay…”

Midorima’s brow creased. “Why would they want to murder him? Kimura is one of the most inoffensive people I know.”

Takao had to crack a smile at that description. “Inoffensive” was certainly an apt way to describe the big power forward. Kimura was a gentleman through and through, polite and quiet, beloved of cats and teachers and old ladies everywhere. “Ootsubo found out that he was dating Tae-chan. So naturally he’s out for his blood now.”

“That’s ridiculous. I can’t imagine anyone being a more respectful boyfriend than Kimura. Ootsubo should consider himself lucky.” Midorima shook his head. “Fortunately, Kimura has been responding. At the very least, he must be alive, conscious, and more or less anatomically intact.”

“Ah, that’s…” Takao bit back on a laugh. “…that’s good to know. I’d hate it if Kimura had to go up against Yosen when he wasn’t ‘anatomically intact’.”

“Yes, Shuutoku already has more than enough injured starters.” Midorima raised an eyebrow, and then looked pointedly down at Takao’s ankle. “Or did you think I wouldn’t notice?” 

Actually, Takao _had_ thought that. Not that he was trying to hide the sorry state that his ankle was in from his boyfriend, but he didn’t think that it was all that visible. He wasn’t limping or anything, and he was using the soft kind of brace, one that was thin and conformable enough that he’d had no trouble shoving it into his shoe. He supposed that yeah, it would have been possible for Midorima to catch a glimpse of that brace between the top of his sneaker and the bottom of his sweatpants, but he didn’t figure that Midorima would be paying that much attention.

“How the heck _did_ you notice that?” Takao asked, not bothering to disguise the genuine confusion in his voice. “Haha, I thought that I was supposed to be the hawk eye here.”

“You were favoring your left leg when you walked in.”

“No I wasn’t.”

Midorima shot him a look. Takao sighed. “Well, I didn’t think that I was,” he explained. “And my ankle’s not that bad, I didn’t even notice it until like an hour ago. I must have hurt myself during the first game today- there was a time when I jumped up for a rebound and must have landed funny. That’s the only time I can think of when my ankle gave me any trouble. I didn’t think anything of it until I came back from my run tonight.”

“You went for a run?”

Takao rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, the captain’s already given me enough shit for that. I have learned the error of my ways.”

“No, I’m not worried about that,” Midorima waved a hand. “I know that you are more than capable of looking out for your own health, and gauging whether you’re overworking yourself or not. I had just… I tried to find you earlier, and wasn’t able to. I had been wondering where you were.”

“Oh.” There wasn’t much else that Takao could say in response to that. Somehow, hearing Midorima say that he trusted Takao to look after himself made him feel ten times guiltier about fucking his ankle up than a half-hour’s worth of Miyaji’s nagging had done. “Yeah. I was feeling kind of restless, so I went out. I tried to find you too, but no luck.”

“That’s a shame. I would have liked to have joined you.”

Takao smiled. “That’s sweet, Shin-chan,” he teased. “Although on second thought, maybe it’s better that you weren’t able to come along. You’ll never guess who I came across while I was out.”

“You’re right. I’ll never guess.”

Midorima’s bluntness never failed to amuse Takao, so his boyfriend had to wait a few seconds for Takao to stop chuckling before he continued. “Okay, point taken, point taken,” he said, waving his hand. “It was Kise Ryouta and Kuroko Tetsuya. You know, the two people you love most in the world?” 

Takao hadn’t fully recovered from his bout of laughter before, and seeing the sour look that sprung up on Midorima’s face upon hearing those two names tipped him right over the edge again. 

“Haha, it’s okay, Shin-chan,” he said, voice wavering as laughter came and went and came again. “I know that they’re your favorites. You don’t need to explain the, uh, the depths of your emotions out loud.”

Midorima just shook his head. “I hope that the pair of them didn’t disturb you too much.”

“Oh, no, not at all!” Takao’s face hurt from how broadly he was grinning. “They were actually really nice. They invited me up to their hotel balcony, the three of us had a good chat. Hey, did you know that the two of them know that we’re going out?”

Midorima had clearly been uncomfortable before, but this was apparently what it took to make him crack completely. The taller boy let out a grunt of surprise and spasmed so hard that his phone, which he had been continuing to check from time to time in hopes of finding a response from Kimura, nearly spilled out of his hands. 

“Are you serious, Kazunari?” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, failing. “You told Kise and Kuroko- unquestionably the two _worst_ members of the Generation of Miracles, one of whom is actually a _bitter enemy_ of mine, about your and my relationship? What were you thinking? Did you sustain a head injury in addition to an ankle one?”

“Calm down, calm down, I never told them,” Takao said, waving his hand languidly. “Kuroko had already guessed. He said that he could tell from the way that you text about me, whatever that means.” 

“That’s silly. Kuroko and I rarely text, and when we do, I’m sure that I never reveal anything so personal. I don’t recall ever having mentioned you to him at all.”

“Well, somehow he managed to read between the lines anyway. Kuroko’s a pretty perceptive guy.”

Midorima clenched his jaw. “Don’t speak about him as if you know him.”

“Hey, _I’m_ the one that just spent like an hour with him and had a very deep heart-to-heart about romance and stuff. If that doesn’t qualify me to say that I know him I don’t know what does.”

Midorima didn’t respond to that right away. For a moment, Takao was nervous. Was his boyfriend angry that Kuroko and Kise had learned that they were going out? It wouldn’t surprise him. After all, Midorima was the one that had always been so insistent that they keep their relationship a secret from everyone. He had been mad even when Takao’s mom and Moriko had found out, and that had been Midorima’s fault just as much as it had been Takao’s. Maybe that’s why Midorima wasn’t saying anything. Maybe he was too angry to speak. 

After a few long moments, it seemed like Midorima came to a silent decision. The tension was released from his back, which had previously been rigid straight under the force of his discomfort. And then finally, Midorima brought his green eyes up to find Takao’s. Their expression seemed a lot less angry than it did before.

“I suppose that, if they already knew, then there’s nothing that can be done about it.” Midorima cleared his throat. He paused a moment before speaking again. “So, you’re saying that you spoke to Kuroko and Kise about it? About our… situation?”

Takao bit back a laugh at his boyfriend’s phrasing. He didn’t want to push his luck by teasing him too much. “I did. We chatted for kind of a while.”

“And were the two of them…what did they think? Were they, ah, were they rude to you?”

Takao gave Midorima a little friendly pat on the leg. How could he not, seeing the nervous look on his boyfriend’s face?“You’re giving them too little credit. Kise and Kuroko were very supportive,” Takao said. But then he pursed his lips and looked upward, as if deliberating. “Well, they were supportive of me, at least. If I remember correctly, they ripped on you for a while and expressed shock that you were ever able to find love, but pfht. Whatever. They’re just jelly.”

And no matter how insulted an expression Midorima tried to fix onto his face after hearing that, he couldn’t hide the relief that shone through. “It’s as I said. Those two are, without a doubt, the worst members of the Generation of Miracles.” Grudgingly, he added, “although I am glad that they didn’t say anything… untoward.”

“Aw, Shin-chan, I knew you cared!” Takao leaned in and made his best attempt at fluttering his eyelashes. It didn’t work, but it made Midorima grit his teeth and flush in a laughably poor approximation of annoyance. In Takao’s book, that made the silly gesture worth it. “Don’t worry, they were the opposite of untoward. They were, well, toward! As toward as a sword in a hoard!”

Midorima had just started to roll his eyes and come back with a dismissive remark when Takao cut him off. “If by that you mean, they didn’t give us any shit for being gay.” 

That word felt weird as it left his mouth, as if the shape of it caught against the inside of his lips. It wasn’t a term that the two of them used very often. Not because they were in denial or anything- although Takao had had a few girlfriends back in the day and still considered himself to be at least somewhat bisexual, he had never thought of his attraction to Midorima as being anything other than what it was. And apparently Midorima was the same, but with the exception that he had never liked girls to begin with. 

But somehow, even though Takao knew that he and Midorima and their relationship and a big proportion of the problems and joys that made up his life could be classified as “gay”, that wasn’t how he tended to think of them. The word seemed too important, in a way, to apply to their run-of-the-mill high school relationship. And at the same time it felt inadequate. It was a paradox for sure, one that Takao dealt with by simply refusing to confront. 

This approach had worked well for him in the past. But now that, apparently, he had a need to discuss his and Midorima’s relationship with people on the outside, who didn’t intuitively understand all that they were and all that they’d been through, it struck him that he might need to expand the vocabulary he used to talk about the two of them. He’d maybe reached the point where feelings weren’t enough, and he needed some words as well.

It was a weird realization. He was surprised how much he relished it. 

“Because actually that would be super hypocritical of them to judge _us_ for being together, because, have you heard? Apparently Kise and Kaijou’s old point guard- remember Kasamatsu Yukio?- the two of them are _also_ dating.” Takao continued to chatter, the words coming almost automatically as his mind spun. He figured it would be okay to relay this particular piece of gossip to Midorima, since Kise sure as hell didn’t seem to be hiding it. "Did you know about that? Because _I_ sure didn't."

Midorima's brow furrowed. “You’re lying. That can’t be true.”

“I assure you it is,” Takao said. 

“That can’t be,” he repeated. “His career… obviously the two of us know Kise as he truly is, but for his job he needs to appear clean cut, and to appeal to the preteen female demographic as a sort of ideal fantasy boyfriend. If he were to come out publicly and say that he was with a man- well, I’d imagine that he wouldn’t be able to continue working."

"Yeah, that seemed weird to me also. Like I'm not planning on telling Moriko or anything, she'd be distraught." Takao shrugged. "But like I said, I don't think that he was lying. He told me a few too many, ah, _intimate details_ about their relationship. I don't think that he could have made that kind of stuff up."

Midorima opened his mouth, as if gearing up to ask about exactly what sort of "intimate details" Takao was referring to. After a second, however, he appeared to reconsider, and he closed it again. The next time he spoke, the subject was much more benign. “Well, if it is true- and I still have my doubts- I’m surprised he told you about it. Kise is very trusting, for somebody so histrionic and self-absorbed."

"So harsh!" Takao laughed. "So very, very harsh. But yeah, there was a lot more honesty going on on that balcony than I'm used to. It was kind of weird, but also kind of nice, you know? Like, it really felt like some kind of fate or whatever was bringing us together. I guess that they don't call them the Generation of Miracles for nothing."

Midorima sniffed. "So you'll believe in the existence of fate when a mildly improbable social interaction happens, but not when I tell you of my many personal experiences with it? I have explained to you time and time again about the significance of the stars and the zodiac, why didn't you ever listen to me before then?"

Takao was almost floundering at a loss for words hearing this, until he noticed a subtle twitch at the edge of Midorima's lip. The asshole was _laughing_ at him. Laughing. At him! 

"Oh, so you're some expert now, on what a person's fate is and all of that jazz?" Takao said, latching onto any topic that presented itself in order to get out of this awkward conversation that, for once, he didn't seem to have the upper hand in. "Real impressive, Shin-chan. You should get your own TV segment. You could be bigger than Oha Asa, you know? We could give it some cheesy title, like... ah, I don't know, Supernatural Shenanigans with Shintarou, and you could go on air every morning and berate people for doubting fate and not working hard enough to achieve their destinies, but then I would guest star every once in a while so you'd be able to pull the, ah, what did you call it again? The preteen female demographic?- so everything would be okay…"

“Kazunari. What on earth are you talking about.” 

Takao shrugged, a goofy little smile on his face. “Beats me.”

With a roll of his eyes, Midorima returned to his books and notes. However, he was distracted by the notification that had popped up on the screen of his phone. 

“Kimura?” Takao asked.

Midorima shook his head. “Chiyako.”

“Chiyako has a phone already? How old is she again, like ten?”

“She’s eight. And no, she doesn’t have a phone yet; she sent an email.”

“Wow! So formal. A little businesswoman in the making.”

“Naturally,” Midorima said, a hint of pride in his voice.

Takao laughed.

He waited a few moments as Midorima tapped out a response. When his boyfriend finally put the phone down, Takao spoke again, in what he hoped was a nonchalant way. “You know… Chiyako also came up, when I was talking to Kise and Kuroko earlier. How she was in the hospital that one time and had to have brain surgery.”

Midorima frowned. “Why were they talking about that? That was years ago.” 

“We were talking about…” Well, what they had really been talking about had been Midorima’s enduring habit of being paralyzed by his own perfectionism to the extent where he sometimes could not manage to engage in socially normal activities. But Takao got the feeling that Midorima would not welcome hearing the entire truth about that. “Well, it’s kind of a long story. I don’t even fully remember how we got there, I guess we were kinda on a tangent?”

“Rather a depressing thing to go on a tangent about.”

“Yeah, for sure. But I’ve been wondering about it, since they brought it up. I never even knew that Chiyako had been sick.” Takao tapped at Midorima’s foot with his own. “We don’t have to talk about it if it’s a sore subject though.”

“Like I said, it was years ago. Chiyako is now in perfect health. I don’t see why it should be a sore subject.”

Midorima’s voice was just a little bit too carefully devoid of emotion for Takao to buy that. But since Midorima had, willingly or not, given him the go-ahead, he pressed further. “So… what happened? They said that she had like a tumor or something?”

“Not a tumor,” Midorima said, quickly, as if the word itself caused him distress. “It was something called a cerebral arteriovenous malformation. In essence, there was defect of blood vessel formation in her brain. They’re not terribly uncommon. And they caught it early.”

“But she still had to get brain surgery,” Takao confirmed.

Midorima nodded. “The affected area… had begun to bleed.”

That sucked. That _really_ sucked. “That’s so scary.”

“Yes. We were scared.” 

Automatically, Takao’s hand found his boyfriend’s. He tried to think of an appropriate response to that, but couldn’t. 

“But then Chiyako had her surgery, which was successful, and the rest of her hospital course passed without event. She had physical therapy for several months after that, but at this point, she is entirely back to normal.”

“Well, thank god,” Takao said. He dragged his thumb along the back of Midorima’s hand, and then gave it a squeeze.

“Thank fate,” Midorima corrected. “She was lucky.”

“For sure.” Takao chuckled. “Well, in any case, I’m glad that luck was on Chiyako-chan’s side. It would be a much more boring world if she wasn’t around to whoop my ass in tennis or smooth over family dinners for us and stuff like that.” Takao smiled fondly at the memories. “Who knows? Maybe there’s something to your whole Oha Asa thing.”

Midorima nodded in agreement. “Most certainly. And for that reason, I have seen to it that Chiyako and I have both carried our respective lucky items each and every day since that time.” He frowned as if something foul-smelling was in the vicinity. “I had grown lazy, before Chiyako’s hospitalization, and would only carry them on days when I felt my luck needed a boost,” he explained. “But I learned the error of my ways. Even on an average day, the fate is too random and capricious to face without some kind of protection.”

Takao considered this for a moment. Although Midorima’s voice was still light- well, as light at it ever was, considering that he had about as much humor as a bag of dehydrated mushrooms- he couldn’t shake the feeling that _something_ in the air around them had just gotten heavier. 

“You’re not wrong, I guess,” he finally responded. “It’s scary when you think about it- how all of the sudden, something could happen, just one little thing, and everything would be different. I worry about it too sometimes. Like with my mom- she’s always walking around late at night when she comes back from work, what if something happened to her? She’s all Moriko and I’ve got. And don’t even get me started on how much I worry about Moriko. And that’s even worse, because Moriko does a lot of stupid stuff and something bad happening to her is more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’ situation.” Takao shook his head. “It’s stressful having a total dumbass for a family member.”

Midorima’s lips twitched. “Not as stressful as having one for a lover.”

“Hey!” 

But before Takao could respond to the outrageous slander that was being heaped upon him, Midorima’s phone lit up again. And this time, it _was_ Kimura.

“It seems that the little get-together upstairs is finally wrapping up. The senpai have left, in any case.”

“Oh. Okay,” Takao said. He watched as his boyfriend stood up and pulled his school bag onto the chair that he had been occupying, With a precise snap, Midorima closed the journal that he had been writing in before, shut his book, and stowed them away. “We heading back up, then?”

Midorima nodded. 

The two of them finished putting away their things and, after conscientiously arranging the chairs back into the exact way that they had found them around the table, walked back out into the lobby.

It wasn’t too late- not even midnight, yet- but the lobby was deserted. So was the elevator when the two of them finally boarded it. It would have been easy for them to continue their conversation, or to dare a goodnight kiss without being observed by others. But somehow that didn’t happen. The two of them said farewell to each other in the more traditional, verbal way, and then got off the elevator on different floors. 

Takao found that he didn’t mind all that much, though. He rested easy in the knowledge that finally their fight was over, and that these kinds of conversations- his favorite type, the long, meandering ones that went everywhere important and nowhere in particular, that weaved back and forth between the two of them until Midorima felt like a part of him rather than just a stern, strange-looking guy sitting at the other side of a table- could start to become a part of his life again on a regular basis. Really, that was what he had missed the most during the few weeks that they had been fighting. Kisses were nice. Takao had missed those. Sex was… still complicated, and in a way it had actually been nice to take a break from that for a while. 

But not having Midorima around at all? That would have been the worst of all possible destinies. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anybody's still reading this, please let me know. I enjoy writing this story and (because of sunk costs and whatnot) still have every intention of finishing it it, but it would help me titrate my motivation to an appropriate level if I could get a sense of whether people are actually interested in reading it. 
> 
> (Yes, this is me fishing for comments x.x)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter officially got long enough that I said "to hell with it" and decided to break it up into two parts. I'm sorry if the ending is a little abrupt. The next chapter is nearly finished and will probably be posted soon, but since it's important to the plot (lol this story does not actually have a plot) I wanted to make sure it is well-edited and polished before I post it. Come to think of it, this chapter could also have used some more editing, but oh well. It is what it is. 
> 
> Thanks for bearing with me! And happy late Valentine's Day, I love everybody who is reading this <3

In a turn of events that was surprising to no one, Shuutoku did not win the Winter Cup that year. They did not even proceed into the semifinals. As all of them who had reasonable expectations and the ability to identify their own strengths and weaknesses as a team had feared, Yosen shut them down, in an almost painful, humiliating way. True, the final score had been 64-52, and the team that had come next closest to beating them had only managed to score fourteen points against Yosen’s one hundred and seven. But that wasn’t relevant right then. 

Because, the only thing that really _was_ relevant right then was how Takao wanted a sip of his orange juice so much that his tongue was almost hurting for it, but the cup was all the way over on the coffee table. This was well out of arm’s reach from where Takao was lying face-down on Midorima’s fluffy, Western-style couch. And he simply didn’t have the energy to get up and retrieve it at the moment.

Trying to articulate the depths of his frustration, Takao let out a strangled groan, a noise that was even further distorted due to Takao’s face being smooshed into a cashmere throw pillow. He couldn’t even imagine how pathetic it must have sounded by the time it reached Midorima’s ears. 

He could hear his boyfriend shift. Midorima was sitting in an armchair to the side of the couch where Takao’s head was resting, positioned such that his large feet were just at the edge of Takao’s field of view but none of the rest of his body was visible. He had a tablet in his lap, and up until that point Takao had been able to hear him tapping at in intermittently, probably to turn the pages of whichever one of the one hundred and seventeen pirated textbooks Takao had loaded onto it as a joke once but which Midorima had been steadily working his way through nonetheless. But now the tapping stopped. 

"Is everything alright, Kazunari?"

Midorima didn't sound overly concerned. But the fact that he had acknowledged his despair at all was kind of sweet. 

Takao opened his mouth to respond in his customary way, to spew out some histrionics about how he was literally dying, desiccating, turning into a husk, and that the only way to rehydrate him would be if Midorima could please go well out of his way to pick up his orange juice and bring it closer so Takao could take a sip of it. But when he finally did speak, what came out was just another grunt, followed by an untrue and inadequate "yeah, I'm fine."

His boyfriend hummed in response. After a moment, there came the sound of another muted tap. He was back to reading, then. 

Takao tried not to let himself get too disappointed. Although, when it came down to it, he didn't know how he had wanted Midorima to respond in the first place. It wasn’t as if Takao deserved orange juice, or to be consoled. 

Takao closed his eyes and tried to sleep, reasoning that he couldn't feel like shit if he wasn't conscious. This sort of worked. He wasn't able to truly fall asleep despite being exhausted from the tournament that weekend, but he was able to get into a kind of hazy dozing state. He guessed that was better than nothing. 

A distant clunking noise soon came to draw him out of his stupor, however. 

“I’m home,” came Chiyako's quiet voice from the entrance. There was another scuffling noise as she switched her shoes, and then Takao heard her padding down the hallway. "Shintarou?"

"We're in the living room," Midorima called. 

She came into view a few minutes later, looking as tidy as ever in her forest-green french braids and her buttoned-up school uniform. Carefully, she propped her bookbag against one of the legs of the low table in the middle of the room. 

Shitty as he felt, Takao couldn't help but crack a smile at how different her demeanor was from Moriko's. Whenever his own little sister came home from school, she would already be yelling up a storm about something or other (usually about whatever stupid thing one of her friends had done that day or some “totally unfair” reason why Moriko had gotten in trouble in class) before she was even through the door, and her shoes and bag would just be thrown into whatever random corner was nearby.

"Oh, Takao-kun is here. Hello, I hope you're doing well." Chiyako gave him a little wave. Then she turned to Midorima. "Shintarou, can I please borrow your highlighter set? There's a packet that I need to read and take notes on for my science class. We're learning about the solar system and it's very interesting."

Takao could hear the approval in his boyfriend's approval as he responded. "Of course. They're in my room, let me go get them for you."

He caught a glimpse of Midorima for a moment as he stood up and walked out the door, but just for a moment. And then after he left, the room fell into a comfortable quiet as Chiyako unloaded her study materials from her bag and arranged them on the coffee table. 

There was another throw pillow on the other side of the couch, where Takao's feet were resting. He could see Chiyako eyeing it from where she sat in front of the table. Mustering up all of his energy, he kicked it over the edge. "Oops, lost my pillow,” he said. “Guess somebody on the floor’s gotta sit on it now.”

“You did that on _purpose_ , Takao-kun,” Chiyako protested. “Pillows are supposed to stay on the couch. Shintarou will be mad.” 

She placed it back where it had been before. Once more, Takao kicked it off. “There it goes again. I’m so clumsy. That’s what you can tell Shin-chan if he gets mad, tell him that his- that Takao is way too clumsy.”

Chiyako kept looking at the pillow. For a moment, Takao thought that she was going to put it back on the couch yet again. But then she let out a long-suffering sigh and brought it over to sit on. 

“There you go.” Takao smiled and let his eyes drift half-closed once more. 

Chiyako picked up a folder and brought out a thick packet with a diagram of Saturn on the front of it. Before she started to read, however, she glanced over at Takao. She read a sentence, and then glanced over again.

Finally, she spit it out. “Aren’t you normally more energetic, Takao-kun?” she asked. Not in a teasing way, or as a joke, but instead as a simple statement of fact.

Takao laughed as hard as he could considering that he was still half-melted in a depressed puddle on the couch. “Yeah, I guess I usually am. Why, is my ennui bothering you?”

Chiyako shook her head. “No, it’s not bothering me at all. I prefer it when it’s quiet.” 

Takao mock-huffed. “Oh, real nice, Chiyako-chan.”

“Well I _do_. I’m not going to lie about it.” She shrugged. “But even if the quiet is nice, you’re acting strange. Why aren’t you all…” she made a jerky motion with the hand, like the path of a bunny as it jumped and hopped. “…like you usually are?”

“Eh, I guess I’m just feeling a little blah today. You know that your brother and my team didn’t do too well in that tournament this weekend.” A memory of the game- more specifically, of the bored expression on Murisakibara’s face after the final buzzer rang and Yosen’s victory was secured- tried to spring up, but Takao shoved it down. He wasn’t going to think about that. “Haha, I must have burned up all my energy caring for that, so now I’m stuck like this. Like a couch potato.”

Chiyako frowned as she considered this. “Like a sad potato.”

“I guess.” 

Takao let his eyes close. Since Chiyako did not speak again, he assumed that her curiosity must have been satisfied. 

But then just as he was about to drift off, he heard the sound of slippered feet padding towards him. Then he felt himself be enveloped by a soft blanket. Letting his eyes crack open, he caught a glimpse of Chiyako moving away from the couch to settle back down on the floor. "Potatoes are better when they're warm," she said simply. 

Takao hummed in thanks and let his eyes close again. 

Moments later, Midorima returned to the room. Takao continued to half-sleep, and so he could not see, but the frown on Midorima's face was distinct enough that he could practically hear it. 

"Did you get him that blanket?"

Silence came- a long enough silence to fit an entire conversation of facial expressions within- followed by a contextless "I'm not _bothering_ him!"

"Did he say he was cold?"

"He didn't say that. But he looked sad."

"Sad?"

"You know, that way that Dad will sometimes look when there's something going on at the business but he doesn't want to talk about it."

A sigh. "Well, thank you for... warming him up. Here are the highlighters you wanted."

Takao heard a soft noise as Midorima deposited the requested office supplies onto Chiyako's table. After a short pause, his boyfriend then came and crouched down next to where Takao was lying. He opened his eyelids a crack to see a soft, soliciting expression on Midorima's face. This look went away as soon as Midorima realized that Takao was looking back at him. 

"Hey, Shin-chan.”

"You're not asleep," Midorima accused.

Takao shook his head "Just resting my eyes."

"Hmm." Midorima looked at Chiyako, and then returned his gaze to Takao. "Are you warm enough?" 

"I guess. I don't know." Takao wasn't sure what was wrong with him, why he couldn't just answer a simple question. Yes, he was cold. Midorima's parents, for all of their wealth, were the kind of people who couldn't bear to turn the heat on in the winter or the AC on in the summer unless the temperatures were genuinely unfit for human habitation. This was true even in late January, the coldest part of the year. The blanket helped, but no, Takao was still not “warm enough”. 

(The thought crossed his mind that, had he felt a little happier about the way things were going, he might not have had any complaints about the temperature. Sometimes emotions were weird like that. But again, there was a sort of barrier right then between the thoughts that he was thinking and the thoughts that he would admit to aloud.) 

“You don’t know? How can you not know?”

“I don’t know.”

With a sigh, Midorima rose to his feet. “Chiyako wasn’t wrong. You are acting odd.” A pensive look crossed his face. He crossed the room, picked up his tablet again, and tapped on it a few times. Then in a few decisive strides, he left the room again. 

_Well, if I’m acting odd, at least I’m not the only one,_ Takao thought. 

To the background music of Chiyako’s quiet humming as she uncapped and recapped her highlighters, Takao closed his eyes and dozed again. 

Once again, what felt like hours but was probably minutes later, Takao woke up to the sensation of a warm blanket being draped over him. However, this time the blanket felt much heavier. Instead of helping him stave off the cold a little bit, it made him feel instantly warm, almost to the point of breathlessness. And when he opened his eyes he couldn't see the living room at all, just a sea of different patterns and colors. 

Intrigued, Takao brought up his arms and dug a little tunnel to expose his face. From there, he was able to count all five of the blankets, quilts, and comforters that had just been placed on him, as well as an sixth additional one- a fairytale princess blanket that Takao imagined had been brought out from Chiyako's room- that Midorima was in the process of unfolding. 

"Well, I'm sure warm _now_ ," Takao noted. He rubbed some sleep out of the corners of his eyes. "Thank you, Shin-chan."

"Go back to sleep," came Chiyako's serious voice. "We're not finished yet."

"Not finished..." He pulled the blankets a little further away from his face, giving him a wider perspective on the room. Now he could see Chiyako. She appeared to be taking a break from her science homework. Her packet sat, unhighlighted, on the little coffee table, as she sat crouched by the other side. She was working on something that Takao could not see. "Finished with what?"

"With getting you back to normal. It's a complicated process." Chiyako answered simply.

"Oh. Well, sorry to make you go through the trouble." Takao turned his gaze to Midorima, who was busy tucking the last corner of the quilt around Takao's shoulders. He could barely feel his boyfriend's touch through all the layers of blankets. “Now, I don’t really understand what the two of you’re trying to do. But knowing you guys I’m willing to bet that it’s totally excessive and unnecessary.” He chuckled. “I’m fine. Really I am, I promise. Just a little tired.”

His protests fell on deaf ears. “The lucky item for Scorpio today is a stepping stool,” Midorima informed him. “Fortunately, we have a few of these around the house. I’ve collected them here.”

With great effort, Takao lifted up his head and looked around. Now that Midorima mentioned it, there were rather more stepping stools around than usual. As a matter of fact, the entire living room was full of them. It was kind of like one of those hidden-image picture books that he and Moriko had liked when they were younger, where you were supposed to find certain objects that weren’t obvious at first glance, but which were craftily worked into the scenery. He hadn’t noticed them before, but now that he looked there were are at least four stools within his line of view. One was right next to the couch. One, tucked craftily under the coffee table. A third over by the TV- Chiyako had just come over to sit down on that one, and started peering at the tower of blu-rays that stood meticulously stacked on a wooden framebeside it.

“Six is your lucky number today, so of course there are six stools in total,” Midorima informed him, apparently having intuited that Takao was trying to count them. 

There had been six blankets too, Takao remembered. He supposed that meant that he was doubly lucky. Midorima and Chiyako were really looking out for him. Somehow, that thought warmed him up just as much as his sky-high stack of blankets had managed to. 

Takao shoved his face back into the armrest of Midorima’s couch, hoping that this action would work to shove his stupid emotions down as well. “How many stools does your family even _have?_ Did you, like, go borrow some from the neighbors or something? You guys are so extra,” he whined. 

“I agree. We are extra cool,” said Chiyako. 

“Well, that too.” 

Midorima let out a snort of laughter at this concession. “Chiyako. Have you chosen a movie yet?”

“I haven’t. There are too many options.” She looked back at them over her shoulder. “Takao-kun, now that you’re awake, do you have something that you want to watch?”

“Nah, I’m fine with whatever. You pick.” And Takao really meant that. Literally any movie on earth would be better than rewatching their match against Yosen over and over again in his mind like he had been doing all afternoon.

Chiyako hummed. “Then, how about this one?”

Takao heard her remove a case from the shelf and lift it up to show Midorima. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Ah, don’t you think that one’s a bit…” He coughed again. “Well, with things being as they are, wouldn’t you rather watch a movie that’s more… uplifting?”

“It’s uplifting to me.”

As much as Takao hated the thought of moving a single muscle, this reaction from Midorima, who was usually wrapped so tightly around his sister’s little finger that it resembled the tape he kept wrapped around his own, piqued his curiosity. Laboriously, he picked up his head and peeked out of the blankets. 

At long last Chiyako came into view, holding the case to “Blackfish” aloft in all of its sinister, monochrome glory.

Takao snorted and closed his eyes again. What a little weirdo. No wonder she and Moriko got along so well. 

“Here, let’s look at the options together. We have plenty of other good documentaries, let’s find some of those…”

After much back and forth (which Takao sleepily half-paid attention to from his blanket nest, speaking up only once to give his assent when they asked if their choice was okay with him), it was decided that they should watch Planet Earth. “We should start with episode six,” Chiyako specified. “So that Takao-kun becomes even luckier. That’s one benefit of watching a TV show instead of a movie. I hadn’t even thought of that before.”

“Excellent idea,” Midorima said. “Episode six, let me see… that would be ‘Ice Worlds’. So the Arctic and Antarctica.”

“That’s one of my favorites anyway. Penguins are so cute.” 

“Yes. Yes they are very cute.”

Midorima popped the blu-ray into the player, and they settled in to watch the movie. Takao kept lying in the exact same part of the couch that he had been glued to for the past half hour or so. Chiyako sunk gracefully to her knees on the floor right in front of him, in a position that would have been hard on Takao’s joints but which somehow looked natural when she did it. As for Midorima, he at first started to head over to the chair that he had been sitting in earlier. But then something at the coffee table caught his eye. 

“Whose cup is this?” he asked.

Of course, it was Takao’s glass of juice. “Oh, that’s my OJ from earlier.”

“You hardly drank any of it,” Midorima said, his voice accusing. 

“Haha, sorry,” Takao said, trying to hide exactly how disappointed he also was about this state of affairs. “I guess it was dumb of me to go pour myself some and then immediately lie down. It’s not like I can drink it like this.”

“Do you still want it?”

“Yeah, I’m still thirsty. I’ll finish it later.”

“Hmm.” Midorima continued to frown down at the glass cup. Then he looked over at Chiyako. “I’ll be back in a moment. Will you please finish getting the TV ready?”

Chiyako nodded, and Midorima disappeared down the hallway. She picked up the remote and deftly navigated through the different menus and submenus, making sure that the display, volume, and subtitle options met all of her precise specifications. Takao had to smile as he watched this- the older Midorima had much the same routine when the two of them watched movies together on their own. 

Speaking of the devil…

Midorima strode back into the room, a plastic drinking straw in his hand. In one smooth movement, he stripped the straw from its paper packaging, placed it into the glass, and discarded the trash in a nearby bin. Then with his other hand he picked up one of the several stepping stools that were currently within his arm’s reach and relocated it to right in front of the couch where Takao was laying and put the glass of juice on top of it. He then adjusted it such that the end of the straw stood within striking distance of Takao’s mouth.

“Obviously, it’s a foolish idea to drink liquids when you’re lying down,” he explained as he worked. “But if the alternative is thirst, then I suppose I’ll allow it.” 

“Aw, Shin-chan! Thank you!” Takao leaned in and took a deep sip, letting out a sigh of contentment. The juice was still cool and fresh. That was the one good thing about the Midorimas keeping their house so cold- it more or less eliminated the need for a refrigerator. And of course the juice tasted even better since he didn’t have to remove his hands from his warm cocoon to drink it. “You’re the best. I was so thirsty.”

Midorima had been staring at Takao’s lips as he sucked on the straw. (In front of their teammates or his parents his boyfriend might have tried to be more subtle about this. But here in their own space, with Chiyako still wading through the interminable settings menu and not paying them even the slightest bit of attention, it seemed okay to risk a bit of honesty.) He waited until Takao had disengaged to continue his lecture. "At least drink it slowly. At this rate, you'll get the hiccups." 

"But it's so _go-od_." The words came out somewhat more like a moan than he had intended, and Midorima quickly looked away, rolling his eyes.

“Idiot.” He then turned his attention to Chiyako. "Are we ready to watch?" 

With a final flourish of the remote, Chiyako closed the menu and nodded her head. Midorima made as if to return to the chair that he had been occupying before. But then he hesitated a moment, sneaking a quick glance over at the couch. 

This was his chance. "There's room over here, if you want to sit," Takao offered.

"By what possible metric could you claim that there is 'room' on that couch? You yourself are practically hanging off the end of it."

Takao curled his legs up, bringing them in towards his chest. Now, a whole cushion was exposed. ”Problem solved. Now come sit down." 

To Takao's surprise, Midorima actually did come and sit down by Takao. He didn't even complain when Takao stretched out his legs again so that they rested on his boyfriend's lap. Instead, he just arranged the stack of blankets around the two of them and gave Chiyako, still resting on the floor with her back against the side of the couch, the okay to start the movie. 

 

 

The three of them passed the rest of the afternoon like that, watching TV in a warm pile on the Midorimas' couch. They made it through episode six of the documentary, and then episode seven and half of number eight for good measure. Slowly, Takao felt his mood improve as he oohed and awwed over the cuteness of the animals and listened to Moriko’s running commentary of fun facts about what seemed like every new biome or species that was introduced. Midorima’s hand, which rested gently on his calves underneath the blanket, not stroking or rubbing but just kind of there, and warm, and comforting- those also helped.

It felt weird to feel happy after the way things had gone during their match with Yosen. And yes, to describe what he was feeling now as “happiness” was probably only half the story: cuddling up to Midorima felt nice, as did being taken care of and enveloped in a thrice-lucky burrito of comfort, but adding all of these nice things to his current experience didn’t take away that undercurrent of disappointment that had been there since earlier that morning. He was still upset about the Winter Cup. But somehow, against all odds… he was a lot less upset than he felt he should have been. And that was pretty much a miracle in and of itself. 

After this they took a break for dinner. Midorima’s mother had come back at some point bearing a big tray of food from some nearby Italian restaurant, and she told them that they should eat it now while it was hot, as Midorima's father would probably be at the office for another few hours.

It was long past dark at that point, and so Takao's next order of business was to set about convincing Midorima to let him stay the night. Ordinarily, he didn't make a habit of this. His mom didn't like it for obvious reasons, and even though Midorima rarely said anything about it, Takao had the feeling that it also stressed his boyfriend out when he slept over. Midorima was a man of routines, after all, and although Takao's dream was to keep dating him for so long that he could eventually insinuate himself into all of them, the fact remained that, as highschoolers living in two separate homes, the two of them weren't quite at that point yet.

But for once, his sleepover proposal didn't get any pushback from his boyfriend at all. "Obviously you'll stay here tonight. Did you think that Chiyako and myself would have gone through all of the effort to make the house lucky for you just for you to leave right away?"

They obtained permission from Midorima's mother (which was more of a formality than anything; it had apparently been a long day at the hospital, and she had already retired to her room by the time Midorima asked her. It was unlikely that she would have even noticed Takao's presence or absence during the night otherwise). Takao didn't bother asking his own mom for permission, knowing both what the likely answer would be and also that she was working an overnight shift again and wouldn't be back until the next morning. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. 

He did send off a quick text to Moriko just to make sure that she was safely tucked in at her friend's house like she had told him that she was going to be that evening. His sister responded with a selfie showing her and a pair of other tiny, dark-haired girls sitting on a couch that he didn't recognize. The three of them were all wearing goofy expressions on their faces, and Moriko was snuggling up to a fat gray cat that looked like it had other places that it wanted to be right then. Takao smiled, happy that his sister was happy. 

_"Say hi to Chiyako-chan for me!"_ she sent in a text a few seconds after he received the picture, followed closely by a second one: _"and to Midorima-kuuun. Make good choices! XD "._

What a little brat. Takao decided not to rise to her bait. _"Will do. Text if you need anything."_

The night wound down quickly after that. Even though the next day was Sunday and the Takao and Midorima had every intention of sleeping in, they were both too tired from the tournament to stay up late. So, after another hour of so of just watching random TV and catching up with internet stuff, they decided to call it an early night.

As always, Midorima went to the trouble of dragging out a futon and setting it up on the floor of his room for Takao. This was a waste of effort, of course- Takao always shared the bed when he stayed over. But his boyfriend did love to keep up appearances. 

"What if some emergency occurs, and a member of my family needs to enter my room quickly during the night? They would be scandalized."

"Ah, but, if that happened... wouldn't they still just see the two of us snuggling in bed?"

Midorima didn't have a good answer for that, other than to ignore him and continue artistically mussing up the sheets to make them look as if they had been slept in. 

After a while Midorima finished setting up the room exactly how he liked it, and the pair crawled into bed and turned out the light. 

It would have been a good time to make out, after that. Takao gave this opportunity the consideration it was due. It had been a while since they'd kissed, after all. Their fight had lasted for more than a week before they'd finally made up at the hotel the previous night. And even before that most of their free time had been monopolized by the ramped-up and ultimately worthless practices for the Winter Cup. To spend a few minutes getting lost in each other again, after all of the time that they'd been apart... well, to Takao at least, that was an appealing prospect. 

Takao had really missed Midorima’s kisses, during their fight. He was a physical person, and he liked doing physical things. So sue him. That wasn't all that he had missed, of course. He had also missed Midorima’s dry humor, his intelligence, his belligerent style of care. Even the parts of his life with Midorima that gave Takao a headache on a usual day, like the lucky items and incessant studying and that god-damned rickshaw, had left their own sorts of empty spaces inside of him when Midorima wasn't there. Kissing was different, though.

But it was late, and eventually their tiredness won out. So, after exchanging a few smaller kisses- short, light, slightly slurred by fatigue- they said goodnight and each scooted over to his own side of the bed. 

There would be plenty of time for all of the other stuff in the morning, Takao reminded himself. What was important was that, now, Midorima was back by his side again. And this time, he wasn't letting him go anywhere.


End file.
